What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[superaielman]

That doesn't surprise me in the least. X4 looked and felt like a big budget title. X5.. much less so, and let's not talk about the games after that.

Oh, Niu! Stop being a slacker and go post in the Niu's fact center topic I posted. Pick an avatar and some games and we'll work from there.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I played Mass Effect for about six hours. Looks to be a great game. I went Soldier for my class because the following things kick ass:

-Guns

And the following things are not guns:
-Biotics
-Tech skills

Pretty partial to the assault rifle, but I found myself surprisingly proficient with the sniper rifle as well. Shotguns, of course, are hard NOT to be good with. In so far, it's a BioWare game. I have little complaint about that, though I haven't seen as much of the interaction between my group members as I did in, say, KotOR2.

[Dunefar]

MMX4 had excellent overall production values. I really liked the anime cutscenes, though god does the VA not hold up.

HoI2- 1943. Brazil-USA alliance is fighting the Japanese in the Philippines and on various pacific islands. Due to the US not being in the allies, they never actually declared war on the Germans. Germany's fared much better than they did historically. They're slowly but surely pushing into Russia and have had no problems beating back the British.

Japan is completely fucked in spite of making good headway in Asia. They're to India now, but.. they're running up against the Brits who can pummel them and through bad land which slows them down. They're also staring down two industrial powerhouses with no support from the Germans. They're fucked as soon as the US gets a fleet good enough to crack their carrier fleet.

Though oddly, the US hasn't done any research in nuclear power yet.

1. The USA not declaring war on Germany is a unique thing to HoI2. While tenuously-maybe possible in real life(If you ignore the shoot on sight orders for the Atlantic fleet regarding U-boats pre Pearl Harbor), the fact that Japan can't easily join the Axis+AI quirk means that if the US is in another alliance they won't join the Allies.

2. Vanilla AI doesn't research nukes. Each nuclear plant costs 50 IC over several months, which is extremely draining. Combined with the relative cost effectiveness of researching/building nukes, it's not a bad thing for the basic AI. If you want a USA with nukes, I'd look into the various AI improvement programs. This is also aggravated by the fact that USA usually ends up with a lot less IC than it should have historically.

[SageAcrin]

Oh, and the fact that X8 sold less than 100000 made Capcom lose all hope.

While vaguely deserved after 5/6 and, I gather, to a lesser degree 7, that makes me cry.

Dynasty Warriors 5:

Yeah, I haven't been playing a lot else lately for some reason. Strange for something so hack and slashy and basic.

Up to the last fight of Cao Cao's string(I guess the leaders have STRING LENGTH OF DOOM.).

He's pretty fun to play. Lacks any standout moves, but pretty much everything-and I mean everything, even stuff like his Air Charge-is above average or better. Also I've broke 6k kills with him on one map due to a fluke, that was cool.

[Dark Holy Elf]

X4 sold 200000, which is just not enough for the huge project that is x4. And then X5 come by, which well, isn't half as goo das X4.

That seems a bit silly. Checking the release dates, MMX4 was released back in the earlyish days of the PSX, before it was even clear it would beat the N64 (or Saturn in Japan, even?), while MMX5 was released during its height. It's like how FF8 outsold FF7.

But it's not like Capcom would ever be stupid about anything.

[AndrewRogue]

Bioshock: It occurred to me that, since WoW problems were memory related, and killing Trend fixed that that maybe, just maybe, Bioshock would work. It looks like I was right! Made it up to the Medical Pavilion. Need to fix my settings so that there is less jerkiness making it hard to aim. Even just wrenching can be a bit hard sometimes.

WoW: Rogues do not like adds. More seriously though, hit level 21. Still Dagger specced which has its advantages and disadvantages. My white damage is a bit weak (although fast as all bloody hell), but Ambush regularly hits upwards of 100 damage (200 on crits) when I open with it, and Backstab (which has a... 50%-ish crit rate at this point?) hits for 70 or so (140 on crits). Supplemented by Slice and Dice white damage, and I'm hitting REALLY hard. I'm just not durable enough to take much in the way of hits, and, of course, getting my Gouges (followed by Sinister Strikes) blocked/parried/evaded ruins me fast.

Still, fun being able to open a fight on a mob and take off a 1/4-1/2 its life.

[Shale]

But it's not like Capcom would ever be stupid about anything.

That would shake the very foundations of my worldview.

Serious Sam: Beaten. Final level was a giant pain. Arena Of Death was pretty fun, but once the last boss shows up and you need to make a blind run across the level, picking up a string of ammo packs just to stave off guaranteed death, the dozens of bull enemies that knock you 30 feet in a random direction when they hit you get pretty damned infuriating.

Started The Second Encounter after that. Fun game so far, and I like the new weapons. Woo sniper rifle in particular.

[Meeplelard]

FE10: Finished!  Final Boss was unique and whorish and other stuff.

Illyana had to die though, but besides the loss of someone (and another healer), didn't really mean much.  What happens to Illyana AFTER the game in her short little bio that everyone gets?

In any event, game is awesome.  10/10 and such, its basically Path of Radiance but better in most ways.  Not sure if I'll do a full rant yet, so I'll leave it at that for now.

[Grefter]

Cool Shale, about time someone else got some Serious Sam action happening, it is an awesome fun game for LANs.  I missed Co-Op Multiplayer in many games.

You going to give Punisher a spin anytime?  It is good for many of the same reasons but gives off even more DOOM vibes.

Edit - For posterity, Painkiller is good and gives DOOM vibes, not Punisher.

[Shale]

Punisher's worth playing? I vaguely recognized its existence when it came out, but didn't give it much thought.

[Grefter]

I said Punisher? I am retarded, I meant Painkiller.

Where the fuck did I get Pnuisher from.

[Shale]

Oooh, Painkiller. That's different then. Yeah, it's one of the things I was going to look into when my PC game backlog runs out.

...and now I see they've got it and the expansion bundled on Steam for ten bucks. Neat.

[AAA]

Battletoads-Intruder Excluder beaten without dying. I would have done it far, far sooner if it wasn't for that stupid boss. Now for ;_; ;_; Terra Tubes ;_; ;_;

[Sierra]

Suikoden: All stars got, good ending secured. Some powerbuilding for the sake of those who reappear in Suikoden 2, and I will be ready to stomp the final into dust.

[DomaDragoon]

Grandia 3: Just beat Respirator Man. Yeah, Disk 1 was a little on the shortish side. On the plus side, I got to really meet pink-haired girl (who I may or may not simply call Utena depending on her weapon - she's on the back cover of the instruction manual, so she's got to be playable).

Levels are 30 all-round.

[Pyro]

Imperishable Night.

Played as Sakuya and some vampire chick on Easy. Required a continue at Reimu. I'm so bad at this game that its actually depressing me.

[Niu]

X4 sold 200000, which is just not enough for the huge project that is x4. And then X5 come by, which well, isn't half as goo das X4.

That seems a bit silly. Checking the release dates, MMX4 was released back in the earlyish days of the PSX, before it was even clear it would beat the N64 (or Saturn in Japan, even?), while MMX5 was released during its height. It's like how FF8 outsold FF7.

But it's not like Capcom would ever be stupid about anything.

It is more like X4 is the FF7 of Capcom just X4 isn't a huge success as FF7. The failure of X4 is also what cause the hiateus between X4 and X5. Capcom really had their expectations up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, that makes a bit more sense.

I guess they just didn't anticipate the flocking away from the sidescroller genre in the PSX era. Even the well-thought of ones (MMX4, SotN in particular) didn't enjoy great sales.

[superaielman]

Yeah, I can't say the 3d version of either Castlevania or Metroid were inspiring in the least either.


ICO- Second savepoint. Very neat game so far- it's basically a giant interactive puzzle with barely enough combat to keep you from getting restless. Pretty game as well.

[Meeplelard]

From the sounds of things, them even bothering with an MMX6 and on feels weird.  I mean, MMX5 was originally intended to be the last (the ending more than makes that obvious) IIRC, so if they weren't selling that well, why bother making games after it? Especially a really half assed job like X6 was (for all that X6 did try a few new things...it was all clearly halfassed, rushed, and not well thought at all.)

I suppose, at very least, X7 was an attempt to modernize the series (making it 3D and all), but eh, again, still feels a bit weird.

[Dark Holy Elf]

From the sounds of things, them even bothering with an MMX6 and on feels weird.  I mean, MMX5 was originally intended to be the last (the ending more than makes that obvious) IIRC, so if they weren't selling that well, why bother making games after it? Especially a really half assed job like X6 was (for all that X6 did try a few new things...it was all clearly halfassed, rushed, and not well thought at all.)

You are asking Capcom to stop making sequels. Does not compute.

[Cotigo]

S5:

So I pick up where my first save left off and, lo and behold, the game stops sucking.  The entire Barows arc was well written and fairly well done.  The gameplay is... eh, but what do you expect from Suikodens not named 3 and to a much lesser extent Tactics? 

However, I am not without complaints.
1.  Towns are just horribly designed.  Random invisible walls you can't walk through for no reason, paths that you need to access being obscured by buildings (I'm looking at you, Estrise), the town music is just dull, etc. etc. 
2.  The dungeons seem all take a page from the SH2 book of dungeon design.  THIS IS NOT GOOD.  I'm dreading the phantom forest or whatever that everyone else keeps saying is the worst of them. 
3.  Okay, okay.  I'm sorry, S5.  I'm sorry I bitched about your stilted expository dialogue in the intro.  Can you at least have NPCs tell me where shit is or... something?  Your towns are so unintuitivly designed and the map so... Suikoden mappish that I'd really appreciate it.
4.  Recruitment.  Fuck off.
5.  Silent mains.  Fuck off.  You know, Konami, if you had just given The Hero Formerly Known as Prince some lines Lyon wouldn't have to play little miss irritating mouthpiece the entire game.
6.  What the hell is with the skill system?  It's so bloody useless.  Not only are the bonuses a fraction of a fraction of what S3 gave you, but you can only equip 2 skills at a time?  Great, S5.  You fixed my one complaint about S3's skill system (SP gain rate) and broke the rest of the bloody system.  Good job.

This is not to say the game's terrible.  Quite the contrary, I'm enjoying myself now; when the Barows clan came to the forefront of the plot every bit about it was well executed.  The characters were despicable but credible, the mystery was actually interesting, the rate at which information was given to you was perfectly balanced with how much we couldn't know to keep the dramatic tension going (as opposed to the intro, "Oh my god we've been through so much I don't want to talk about it.  Oh hey queen yeah Lordlake sucks that's what I was bitching about but not saying anything about it for teh MYSTARY. By the way queen did you know that you brought ur rath down on Lordlake 2 yrz ago? thought ud like to no." Fuck the intro).  Just... there are a lot of minor things irritating me.  Things that managed to take a step BACK from S4.  For all that sailing is shit at least I could navigate the towns reasonably. 

Oh well, looks like I'll end up giving the game a high ranking, in the end.  Very plot heavy and it proved that it can do plot reasonably well.

[Crystalgate]

Tales of destiny II: Started Ruins of Volt or whatever it's called. Encountered a puzzle that gave me very missleading information. Then my internet connection failed.

Managing TP has become much easier now. Enemies tend to drop more TP restoring gels now and I have plenty of TP managing accessories as well as the skill that boosts TP regeneration.

Rhapsody: Played it while my connection was down. I chose the hard difficulty since I've heard about how challenging battles generally are in Rhapsody. I like it so far.

[ThePiggyman]

Picked up Suikoden 3 again. Figured I'd play something to keep me occupied as I wait for Christmas. :p

Started with Geddoe's part of the quest, and just got Aila. Finally, some actual healing. <_<
Been going pretty good so far.

[Meeplelard]

6.  What the hell is with the skill system?  It's so bloody useless.  Not only are the bonuses a fraction of a fraction of what S3 gave you, but you can only equip 2 skills at a time?  Great, S5.  You fixed my one complaint about S3's skill system (SP gain rate) and broke the rest of the bloody system.  Good job.

For what its worth, later game skills are essentially a combination (and I mean full combination, not 50/50 splicing) of 2 or more skills, so you can, in esscence, equip more than two.

Mind, there are issues with this anyway, but I don't want to bring them up lest I am wrong about some of the facts, so someone else can elaborate on it more if need be.

Yeah, S5's skill system doesn't really get much hype mostly cause it doesn't deserve any; it sounded great they were bringing back the Skill system!
...only to get this half assed thing instead.

Sad that of all the games, only the SRPG SPIN OFF actually tried to do something resembling S3's skill system.