What are you playing?

[Tinwhistler]

It's on my wishlist. I have a strict 75% off or $10 rule for buying games on steam though, and so far Kerbal has been excluded from all the sales.

bummer...Here's a video to whet your appetite


I got KSP pre-steam. While i can convert to a steam key for free, once you go steam you can't go back. There's something nice about throwing my KSP folder in my Amazon cloud drive and being able to play it at any computer I'm sitting at without having to install Steam or having it show up on my installed programs list on audited computers

 

[Hailey Knight]

We got a classic controller for the Wii/Wii U, so I've been playing Super Mario RPG. This will keep me SNES nostalgia-happy until I can get Earthbound.

 

[CynicismKills]

Started up Tales of Vesperia for a replay. Got to the Wolf boss today. Might have to stop the playthrough, this is seriously the hardest within-the-first-two-hours boss of any JRPG I've ever played, and I have played a lot. Every time I get to this guy I forget just how brutally tough he is.

 

[bhamv3]

I am playing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas together, with a mod called Tale of Two Wastelands.

Not bad. It's still an alpha, so there are apparently some minor issues, but I haven't encountered any yet.

 

[Ravenpoe]

I am playing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas together, with a mod called Tale of Two Wastelands.

Not bad. It's still an alpha, so there are apparently some minor issues, but I haven't encountered any yet.

That sounds like a great way of making New Vegas worse by incorporating the much lesser Fallout 3

 

[Gilgamesh]

That sounds like a great way of making New Vegas worse by incorporating the much lesser Fallout 3

It keeps the gameplay of New Vegas while incorporating the areas/characters of 3.

 

[bhamv3]

It keeps the gameplay of New Vegas while incorporating the areas/characters of 3.

Yep, so you get the gameplay improvements from New Vegas (better aiming and sniping, for example) while being able to explore the Capital Wasteland.

 

[Gilgamesh]

That sounds like a great way of making New Vegas worse by incorporating the much lesser Fallout 3

It keeps the gameplay of New Vegas while incorporating the areas/characters of 3.

 

[Shawn]

Finished up Steam World Dig on my DS and give it a score of "worth at least one play through". It's enjoyable to a point, as it's pretty much the same thing over again. I would describe it as Dig Dug crossed with Metroid. You explore the world using the mechanics of the former, and then you seek out upgrades and retrace over old areas like the latter. It was worth the ten bucks I paid for it, so no complaints. It's a good looking game too, so no concerns there either. I don't think I'll play it again any time soon though. Just not much replay value.

Also on my DS I picked up a few classics. I finished up Super Mario Land 2 in one evening. It's kinda sad seeing just how easy that game is, and how it felt like it took me a lot longer to beat as a kid.

Zelda: Oracle of Ages: Been playing this. Had to start over cause of a bad save. It's okay so far. I'm disappointed that they didn't even attempt to upgrade the graphics from Link's Awakening.

Zelda: Windwaker: I got to play the other ones while I was in Milwaukee for a workshop. No wife or kids to stop me. Sadly, I couldn't take my WiiU with me, so after about three weeks of owning the game I have actually only gotten to the first town island.

 

[bhamv3]

Encountered my first major bug in Tale of Two Wastelands. Can't exit the Anchorage simulation.

Yep, this is an alpha all right. Still fun though.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Finished up Steam World Dig on my DS and give it a score of "worth at least one play through". It's enjoyable to a point, as it's pretty much the same thing over again. I would describe it as Dig Dug crossed with Metroid. You explore the world using the mechanics of the former, and then you seek out upgrades and retrace over old areas like the latter. It was worth the ten bucks I paid for it, so no complaints. It's a good looking game too, so no concerns there either. I don't think I'll play it again any time soon though. Just not much replay value

Just so you know, the layout of the underground changes per playthrough, so it won't be exactly the same next time. I'm only a couple hours in and I'm having a blast.

Also on my DS I picked up a few classics. I finished up Super Mario Land 2 in one evening. It's kinda sad seeing just how easy that game is, and how it felt like it took me a lot longer to beat as a kid.

This is why I've been hesitant about buying some of the NES and Gameboy games. They had to be designed so that once you got good enough, it was within reality you could beat them in a sitting since there was no save function then. Now not only is there a save function in the form of the restore, but we have the skills to beat them fast. Apparently most of the NES Megaman games can be beaten in an hour.

 

[Bowielee]

I was able to beat the old Mega Man games in a few hours back in the day.

 

[Hailey Knight]

I was able to beat the old Mega Man games in a few hours back in the day.

 

[GasBandit]

Heck, sometimes these days I still fire it up to ironman my way through Megaman 2 in one sitting.

 

[Jay]

Reinstalled New Vegas to play to relive memories of many years ago. Particularly wanted to try, Settlers mod.

I just can't seem to want to play this game. After the glory of Skyrim (despite its faults), this old engine's age is showing something fierce.

No mods, crashes 3 times within 90 minutes. I have the famous slide bug where my guy is on ice and no real fix is available but even then... some keys cannot be remapped. The game studders on medium performance. NPCs walk into walls and look bad. It's not as nice as Skyrim and most of all I miss how much more fun Skyrim is in general.

I wanted a Fallout binge but I'll pass. Thank you for the memories from 2008-2010 but I can't go back. Weird I can emulator games from the 90ies without problem but a 6 year old game engine is just so damn nasty.

I wonder if the Ultimate Skyrim edition is due sometime soon. I'd like to replay the shit out of it with all the mods I can find.

 

[Frank]

You and New Vegas were always cursed. I never experienced anything like that with it, even at the game's launch and I always seem to run into all the big well known bugs with PC games.

 

[Terrik]

Bouncing between Battlefield 4 and Dota 2. My gaming life has become stale...and I don't seem to mind. It scares me. Maybe I should try playing through Amnesia again. This time, I'll last more then 3 minutes.

 

[Hailey Knight]

I just can't seem to want to play this game. After the glory of Skyrim (despite its faults), this old engine's age is showing something fierce.

I'm right with you there. I didn't get to really dig into New Vegas before Skyrim came out, and sadly I just can't muster enthusiasm. Each time I try to play New Vegas, barely 10 minutes pass before I realize I could be playing Skyrim instead and enjoying it more. It's too bad.


New Super Luigi U: I know the "New" series isn't that great, and I've come to despise New Super Mario Bros 2, but this one feels different, largely because my wife can play along. More importantly, Nabbit means she can play as an invincible character (except for falling). The game's also hard, so it balances out. We had a lot of laughs for playing just a half hour or so on Saturday, and it'll probably be even more fun when we get my cousins to take over the Toads. Here I can see the appeal of the "New" series, when it's a multi-player situation. Maybe when one of my cousins gets NSMB2 (or "Mario Gold" as he calls it) for Christmas I'll actually enjoy that game too for something besides Coin Rush.

 

[Frank]

It's unfortunate, you miss some actually engaging RPG characters in NV that are absent from Bethesda proper games.

 

[Hailey Knight]

It's unfortunate, you miss some actually engaging RPG characters in NV that are absent from Bethesda proper games.

I know; I've seen them from when my wife plays, as she's not suffering from the same lack of motivation when it comes to NV. It looks great, but I'm just not feeling it when I play.

 

[Terrik]

It's unfortunate, you miss some actually engaging RPG characters in NV that are absent from Bethesda proper games.

I hardly ever remember NPCs from Bethesda games.

 

[bhamv3]

I hardly ever remember NPCs from Bethesda games.

DEMOCRACY IS NOT NEGOTIABLE.

(Okay, yes, this one might be cheating a bit)

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Arkham Asylum & Arkham City

With all the talk of Origins and my disinterest in buying it for anything more than $20, I decided to replay through these ones. And man, they're still great.

I noticed, though, that they play in very different ways. Asylum is slower paced, focusing more on the story and being methodical about the fighting. City, though, goes at a faster pace. Even the fighting animations are quite a bit faster (like, say, 20-30%). I think it was needed to go alongside the open world exploration. The slower, methodical pacing of Asylum was needed for the smaller, almost cramped-in feeling of being in a prison (big as it was).

Honestly, they're both great for their own reasons. Which is a shame for what I've heard about Origins, which is basically a hollow retread.

 

[Terrik]

Arkham Asylum & Arkham City

With all the talk of Origins and my disinterest in buying it for anything more than $20, I decided to replay through these ones. And man, they're still great.

I noticed, though, that they play in very different ways. Asylum is slower paced, focusing more on the story and being methodical about the fighting. City, though, goes at a faster pace. Even the fighting animations are quite a bit faster (like, say, 20-30%). I think it was needed to go alongside the open world exploration. The slower, methodical pacing of Asylum was needed for the smaller, almost cramped-in feeling of being in a prison (big as it was).

Honestly, they're both great for their own reasons. Which is a shame for what I've heard about Origins, which is basically a hollow retread.

These 2 are my favorite comic-based games period.I melted with glee from every cameo and appearance in Asylum and City.

 

[bhamv3]

I found Asylum to be decent at best, but City was awesome. Possibly because I'm a sucker for open world games.

 

[Terrik]

I found Asylum to be decent at best, but City was awesome. Possibly because I'm a sucker for open world games.

It's probably because you live on an island

 

[Frank]

City is open world in the barest sense. There's the map, but very little of the freedom. Personally I felt the gameplay and story flowed much better in the linear fashion of Asylum than in the shoe-horned open world of City.

Don't get me started on the vast inferiority of City's Riddler puzzles.

 

[Terrik]

City is open world in the barest sense. There's the map, but very little of the freedom. Personally I felt the gameplay and story flowed much better in the linear fashion of Asylum than in the shoe-horned open world of City.

Don't get me started on the vast inferiority of City's Riddler puzzles.

I didn't even bother with most of them.

 

[Frank]

I didn't even bother with most of them.

That's the problem, they were a tedious chore in City and were fun puzzles with HUGE Batman history callbacks in Asylum along with the lining up the question mark puzzles which were still better than the vast majority of the throw this batarang through this pipe "puzzles" in City.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Metroid: Goddamn, you are a mean little game. Can't bend to shoot, just moving a ways on the screen replenishes enemies (as opposed to changing rooms).

 

[Frank]

Your pea-shooter having about 3 inches of range doesn't help either.

 

[CynicismKills]

Metroid 1 and 2 are brutal compared to the later entries. Zero Mission, the remake of 1, scaled down the difficulty considerably thanks to the Super-like control scheme.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

City is open world in the barest sense. There's the map, but very little of the freedom. Personally I felt the gameplay and story flowed much better in the linear fashion of Asylum than in the shoe-horned open world of City.

Don't get me started on the vast inferiority of City's Riddler puzzles.

I respectfully disagree. I HATED the "line up the question mark" puzzles because it sometimes took forever to line up the stupid period with the rest. I much preferred some of the tricky switches and such, like figuring out you had to dive-bomb one to hit it hard enough. Though I will admit, Nygma's constant taunting in Asylum was better and more rewarding because he gradually got more and more frustrated. It somehow didn't feel the same in City after rescuing a doctor. Though I did like his final comeuppance in City more, just for the hilarity of seeing him wheeling around the place, panicking when you stood in front of him.

I do agree the story flowed in a much better, more linear fashion in Asylum. All the side-quests in City took away from that, for sure. Asylum had the main story and the Riddler stuff, that's it. But I found a lot of the side-missions in City equally fun, especially where you played detective against Deadshot and Hush.

I also don't agree that there was very much freedom. Certainly not as much freedom as other sandbox games, no, I'll grant you that. But you weren't penalized for not doing the story missions for awhile. Heck, I would riddle-hunt and do side-missions for awhile in between story missions, usually if I got a fancy new gadget to play with.

But overall, yeah, I agree and disagree on various points. You can't argue that both games have their pros and cons in comparison to each other. Travelling around City, for example, was much more fun, and faster.

 

[Bowielee]

That's the problem, they were a tedious chore in City and were fun puzzles with HUGE Batman history callbacks in Asylum along with the lining up the question mark puzzles which were still better than the vast majority of the throw this batarang through this pipe "puzzles" in City.

City also had the question mark puzzles.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Asylum and City are both different beasts, and they are both beasts I love with all my heart. Sometimes in inappropriate ways that could be counted a felony in some states.

Asylum feels like a better contained Batman story. It could easily be a movie, about Batman stuck inside the asylum, forcing his way through with limited resources. Every little touch was great. The way he got beat up more and more throughout the storyline, from leaping around without a care in the beginning, to giving the barest little groan of a strain when pulling himself up to a ledge near the end when he was more worn out, everything in that game screamed love for the source material.

City also had a lot of love, but was a much bigger, more 'gamey' video game. I still love it, I still play the shit out of it, and I'll be damned if I can pick whether I like it or Asylum more, but I can say that Asylum had the better narrative.