What are you playing?

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
bhamv3 said:
So, I've been playing some LA Noire, just finished the traffic desk, and I'm sorry to say I've grown bored of it already. It's a well-crafted game, but it just can't keep my interest.

I think the problem is that I realized there's no real penalty to screwing up a case. I could botch my way through every investigation, and no matter what happens I'll still be able to move on to the next one, and get promoted after a few cases. The game is happy to just merrily move me along the next set of rails, telling me the story it wants to tell.

Now, granted, there's nothing wrong with telling a story, but usually you'd want the game to be as immersive as possible for maximum storytelling effectiveness. And here LA Noire falls short again, because I keep running into things that break immersion. The aforementioned ability to be a star cop even if you screw up every case, for one. The ability to just ignore your current case and go gallivanting through the city looking for gunfights and fisticuffs is another. All of this combines to remind me that I'm not really playing a game, I'm watching a lengthy movie with moderately interactive segments.

So, new plan. I'm just gonna barrel through the rest of the game, picking "doubt" on every question, and enjoy Cole acting like a psychopath. There is probably a strong case to be made for this being the "wrong" way to play the game. Don't really care, for me it's either play it wrong or don't play it at all.
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Oh, it gets even worse.
Major spoiler -
Even if you ace every single case, turns out you were wrong anyway - the final case reveals all your previous collars were dead wrong and it was one politician's son who did all the murders. Which was infuriating because I saw it coming a mile (and a half dozen cases) away but there was no way in the game for me to say "Stop, wait, this guy didn't do it, all these cases are clearly connected, if not the work of a single man, and we need to let this guy go." NOPE. Just blunder through doing what you know to be wrong and then act all surprised in the final case! Gagghhh.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Oh, it gets even worse.
Major spoiler -
Even if you ace every single case, turns out you were wrong anyway - the final case reveals all your previous collars were dead wrong and it was one politician's son who did all the murders. Which was infuriating because I saw it coming a mile (and a half dozen cases) away but there was no way in the game for me to say "Stop, wait, this guy didn't do it, all these cases are clearly connected, if not the work of a single man, and we need to let this guy go." NOPE. Just blunder through doing what you know to be wrong and then act all surprised in the final case! Gagghhh.
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This isn't entirely true...

Only the Homicide cases related to the Black Dahlia were incorrect and they make it clear that at least some of them may have been dangerous in their own right. The Vice and Arson cases all tie together though and you DO get the right guy in the end for those.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Finished the last Dark Souls 2 DLC, demolished the final boss again, and then fought the final final boss, who is really easy after the Fume Knight and is really only a challenge if you don't realize that the ground around him turns to lava periodically. My first attempt, I had him down to almost zero health, but I got greedy trying for the final blow and my feet melted off.

The DLC makes a big difference for the game, not just in being much better designed areas and harder bosses than the vanilla game, but providing better context for the point of Dark Souls 2. On some level I feel that even if the game design had been up to par with the first game, the story in this would've still been disappointing because of what it had to cover between Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3,

showing us that this has happened again and again and again in the millennia since Lordran. Not only the repeating cycle of the Flame, but also the effect that the shards of Manus have had. So many dead kingdoms, fallen kings, the curse happening in different ways, the methods of dealing with or succumbing to the fading of the Fire ... all of that had to be contained on one game, or else make the same game again and again until finally being ready to have a game for breaking the cycle, which I presume Dark Souls 3 to be about.

Wasn't crazy about Chaos being shoehorned into the Ivory King DLC near the end, because the way they acted about it seemed more in line for how characters should act toward the Abyss, but maybe that was just that character's different perspective since she came from the Abyss as another shard of Manus's soul.



Now what the hell do I play for the next five days until I get my hands on Dark Souls 3? :awesome:
 
Null

Null

A few weeks ago my friend started playing SWTOR because his wife's playing it. Now we're all playing it. I even subscribed because after a while, you pretty much have to in order to get the full experience in the game. And I am enjoying the hell out of it. I even have 3 characters, already, 1 main and 2 alts. The main, a Bounty Hunter, is a lot of fun to play. Part of that is because I chose the "Fat" body type, and while he's still powerfully built, he's basically spherical with moobs under all that armor, and seeing him making crime lords and the like quake with fear is just funny.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

I've had Alan Wake in my Steam library I think ever since I got my big gaming rig two Christmases ago. I'd been meaning and meaning and meaning to get around to it. Tonight, I finally did.

And...it's pretty good. Really good atmosphere and interesting story. Though it borrows very heavily from things like Twin Peaks and Stephen King's The Dark Half. The combat is a little lacking and repetitive. If I can, I might set the difficulty to easy so I can just enjoy the scenery and plow through the story.

While I definitely don't regret getting it, I'm glad I didn't pay much for it.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Popped in Dark Souls--not out of addiction or anything, but because I wanted to re-acclimate to the way movement works in every Souls game besides Dark Souls 2. And dodging, that works differently too. Now I'm full prepared to get my ass kicked on Tuesday.

I also hopped into Skyrim, and it's been a couple years, just to screw around as a silly thief character. Get caught? Steal as much as you can along the countertop. Can't get away from guards? Steal a horse. Trouble is, that's treating it like GTA and got boring about as fast. Someday I'll start another proper character.
 
CynicismKills

CynicismKills

Put a few more hours into Xenoblade X, and the story's still dumb but at least I've gotten my mech. Of course, I still have like 3 chapters to clear before I can fly, which is lame, but now I guess I should save up cash to get a few more mechs for the rest of the party.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
On a whim I started replaying Company of Heroes. It's still pretty good, though the graphics are starting to show their age in the cut scenes, as the mid 2000s was the transition period when doing in-engine cutscene scripts was starting to be in vogue but models and textures weren't quite HD enough.

The gameplay is not quite as good as I remember it, either. It's still pretty micromanaging-dense (having to select individual squads and order them to throw grenades/etc), but even moreso now I'm noticing fudging/bullshit on the part of the single player campaign, when it comes to population caps, enemies spawning from off the edge of the map, damage/cover calculating, and especially the bonus "medal" objectives - IE, "quick, destroy this building all the way across the map in 2 minutes" when it will take at least that long to kill my way TO the building, and for some reason I'm not allowed to fire ground-targeted artillery into the fog of war. It's also extremely irritating that I can't build a triage center anywhere but at my headquarters. This basically ensures that the farther along in the mission I get, the less available healing will be, and casualties start to stack up, especially in the final push for the enemy HQ.

I don't know if I will finish this playthrough, really.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

ThatNickGuy said:
I've had Alan Wake in my Steam library I think ever since I got my big gaming rig two Christmases ago. I'd been meaning and meaning and meaning to get around to it. Tonight, I finally did.

And...it's pretty good. Really good atmosphere and interesting story. Though it borrows very heavily from things like Twin Peaks and Stephen King's The Dark Half. The combat is a little lacking and repetitive. If I can, I might set the difficulty to easy so I can just enjoy the scenery and plow through the story.

While I definitely don't regret getting it, I'm glad I didn't pay much for it.
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The side-game Alan Wake's American Nightmare actually addresses the combat issue slightly in the process of it's genre shift: because it's no longer aping Stephen King-style stories and is instead more like a B-Horror movie/Twilight Zone episode, the slow methodical combat is gone and now it's a bit more actiony with tons of weapons to choose from. The enemies are bit harder at the same time. Again, this was a conscious decision when they decided to take inspiration from a short-form format instead of a novel, so it actually feels right.

There are actually a lot of references to Alan Wake in Quantum Break. It's clearly they want to do a full fledged sequel and they might have the money for it after Quantum Break.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

CynicismKills said:
Put a few more hours into Xenoblade X, and the story's still dumb but at least I've gotten my mech. Of course, I still have like 3 chapters to clear before I can fly, which is lame, but now I guess I should save up cash to get a few more mechs for the rest of the party.
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You are now at the point where I burned out.

The main plot cutscenes annoy me so much because the villains are friggin cartoons. I expect more than Power Rangers level writing from this level of JRPG, even if it's a JRPG trying to ape western RPGs to an extent. From what I've read, that became the goal (somewhat via Nintendo) to make a game that could compete with stuff like Fallout 4, which is why we got a silent customizable protagonist instead of a main character.
 
CynicismKills

CynicismKills

Zero Esc said:
You are now at the point where I burned out.

The main plot cutscenes annoy me so much because the villains are friggin cartoons. I expect more than Power Rangers level writing from this level of JRPG, even if it's a JRPG trying to ape western RPGs to an extent. From what I've read, that became the goal (somewhat via Nintendo) to make a game that could compete with stuff like Fallout 4, which is why we got a silent customizable protagonist instead of a main character.
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I took a week or so away from the game, so we'll see how long I go before another break.

And yeah I just got past the point in the story where
the big puffy fish-man villain revealed he's holding basically a whole race of cat-people at gunpoint to make their leader work for him, which is something, I guess.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
LEGO Batman 3

Yay! It's another LEGO game.
Crap! The bonus activities are all about showing off how crappy the camera is.

I can only assume that there must be multiple different teams working on these games, for several reasons:
- The races in Marvel Super Heroes were a lot better than the races in this game, and they built a planet just for racing.
- LEGO The Hobbit came out 7 months before Batman 3, and listed character powers, this one doesn't.

I had fun. I always had fun with LEGO games, but the bullet points:

Liked:
- Lots of characters, and cute little touches. It's great that the Wonder Woman theme song plays when she flies.
- All the other stuff I liked from other LEGO games, the writing, the simple but fun gameplay, etc.
- The VR mission that was a twin-stick shooter was a cool addition, too bad they hardly did anything with it.
- I liked my own punning when creating the custom characters for quests. My penguin was Ice Birb, my cow got equipped with a shrink ray and was Lil' Doge, and my Booster Gold knock-off was Boaster Duplo.
- Holy shit is Frankenstein's character animation awesome. It makes me want a Devil May Cry type stylish action fighter starring him. I especially like how he plants his sword in the ground to make a quick 180 turn.

Disliked:
- Holy shit the Lantern Planets were a bad idea. I was getting motion sickness, constantly fighting the camera, and while they mostly looked pretty, they felt boring.
- Too much Green Loontern.
- Too much "na-na-na-na-na-<character name>" it was cute the first couple times (Atrocitus actually made me laugh out loud), but hearing Cyborg say it over and over and over again got on my nerves.
- Too much Adam West screaming for help. Good grief is his voice annoying.
- Oa was just one huge ball lump of awful. The races weren't fun, the art design was boring, and of all the lantern planets to put invisible walls in, why the hell on the one where the boundaries are so close to the start of the races that it's difficult to turn around and get into the correct position to start the race?

Why haven't they done this yet?
- During free play missions you can switch between characters with the left and right bumpers. This is pretty handy sometimes, but limited by the fact that you don't have full choice over which half-dozen-ish characters are in the rotation. Why haven't they fully embraced this by allowing players to choose their primary roster, and to do this during free roam of the overworld as well? It would make swapping power sets a lot quicker.

Also, I won't count this against the game, because it's just nerd nitpicking, but I don't get why some characters don't have certain powers. Martian Manhunter can't turn invisible (still!), Wonder Woman isn't as strong as Superman, etc. With some of these it's probably plot/gameplay driven (like Cyborg not being able to interact with certain tech interfaces like Robin and Luthor can), but others it just doesn't make sense. Like Brainiac can't do the tech interface thing, and he's only available in free-play. Superman, Power Girl, Supergirl, etc are all invulnerable (steel hearts), but Doomsay, Darkseid, etc. aren't. None of the Lanterns are able to light up dark spaces. And Aquaman should get a movement speed bonus in water.

On the plus side, kudos for allowing Terra to interact with the swamps that Solomon Grundy digs things out of, letting other super-fast characters besides Flash do speed builds, etc.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I decided a couple weeks ago to do a Strength build run of Shin Megami Tensei IV, only to discover tonight that there was a balancing issue where physical skills scale with Dexterity, not Strength, and the only your regular physical attack scales with Strength, making it an essentially useless stat. That's really damn annoying and there's no way to undo it. I've used mainly a Magic build the other times I've played, so I had no idea.

Right now Strength is my highest stat, like, 20 points over any other stat. That's only four levels, but still ... dammit.
 
Frank

Frank

Just finished off the Hearts of Stone expansion for the Witcher 3 just in time for Dark Souls 3. It was really excellent. It was lovely to see Shani again and it had some REALLY entertaining segments to the main quest. The wedding and the heist and the ghost house and so on and so on. Just more excellent work from CD Projekt Red. Olgeird is a wonderful new character, as is Gaunter O'Dimm.

It also has one of the best pieces of music in the entire game that is ENTIRELY easy to miss.

 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Almost to Dark Souls 3. Tomorrow night, bring it home, make character, will feel good. Wednesday, off from work, play all day, get stuck on same boss for 5 hours, hate self, will feel good.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Zero Esc said:
Almost to Dark Souls 3. Tomorrow night, bring it home, make character, will feel good. Wednesday, off from work, play all day, get stuck on same boss for 5 hours, hate self, will feel good.
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Get stuck trying to authenticate, cannot connect to servers on launch day, feel like hell.

:p
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Bubble181 said:
Get stuck trying to authenticate, cannot connect to servers on launch day, feel like hell.

:p
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That's ... not how Dark Souls works. You can play solo if you want to.

Also, I play on console. Steam authentication can't keep me down.

Frank said:
Been working magically fer me. Loving it so far.

Heads up friends, it's REALLY good.
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SPOILERS HOW DARE YOU

... This is going to be a long day at work.
 
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Bubble181

Bubble181

Zero Esc said:
That's ... not how Dark Souls works. You can play solo if you want to.

Also, I play on console. Steam authentication can't keep me down.
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Eh, I was just joking. That said, you're right, there's never been a console launch that got crippled because of bad network infrastructure or authentication servers being down :p
 
Frank

Frank

Jesus, there are some tough ass enemies in this game. It just crashed on me as I was entering the second boss' area. Mad at that.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Dark Souls 3: I ended up getting struck with alt-itis and ended up creating multiple characters to play through the tutorial until I decided on what I wanted. I don't know why; I'm perfectly aware of just how unimportant your starting class eventually will be. In any case, I'll make more progress tomorrow.

I love the Estus allocation mechanic. Great gameplay addition and really lets you tailor your resources based on what you need.

Between work, picking up the game, and some home time, I finished Mega Man 6. I don't think I'll be replaying this one. The weapons seemed largely useless. The Rush add-ons were a lot of fun, even if they trivialized parts of the game. I like seeing abilities that aren't just a change of element. But those little things aren't enough to make me come back to it.
 
LittleKagsin

LittleKagsin

On a whim I picked up The Witcher III, and I'm quite enjoying it so far! :D It's the first time in a REALLY long time that I've wanted to stay up all night playing a game. I normally struggle with large open worlds - getting too side-tracked, which makes me lose interest in the story because I forgot what's going on - but I'm doing alright so far. I'm not as confused as I thought I would be, seeing as I didn't play the first two. I like the mythos/world created, I'm definitely happy I picked it up. Plus, they give you a horse. :heart:
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

LittleKagsin said:
On a whim I picked up The Witcher III, and I'm quite enjoying it so far! :D It's the first time in a REALLY long time that I've wanted to stay up all night playing a game. I normally struggle with large open worlds - getting too side-tracked, which makes me lose interest in the story because I forgot what's going on - but I'm doing alright so far. I'm not as confused as I thought I would be, seeing as I didn't play the first two. I like the mythos/world created, I'm definitely happy I picked it up. Plus, they give you a horse. :heart:
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Plus the game starts with a fair-haired hottie going full spread in a bathtub.

 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Maaaaan, what a day in Dark Souls 3. I'm waist-deep in the third non-tutorial area.

Story
There's some crazy shit going on. It seems like the Unkindled are a different kind of undead from the Hollows we've been playing as, as they don't live via humanity from the Dark Soul, but off embers of the First Flame. Also, those knights who turn beastly seem to have some Abyss shit going on with them. I cannot wait to see what's going on with all this.

It's more clear than ever how necessary it was for Dark Souls 2 to maintain a status quo so Dark Souls 3 could break it. DS2 could've handled it much, much better, but the establishment of the cycle was necessary so we could see this glorious thing come to life.

Characters ... well, I made happy noises when I saw ...
new onionbro. I suspect he's descended in some way from Siegmeyer (and then Sieglinde's) line.

Really appreciating the return to solid design. I hit a big open area and thought it was going to be like DS2's big open areas, but no, it's simplistic appearance was deceptive, and parts of the landscape made easy passage between parts of the map very difficult. What you get is more of a playground than a straight track, which made invading a lot of fun. I blew through all my cracked red eye orbs in a fit of invading just because I was enjoying playing games with the hosts, even if they sicked blue sentinels on me (of which I am one also :D).
 
Jay

Jay

Frank said:
Just finished off the Hearts of Stone expansion for the Witcher 3 just in time for Dark Souls 3. It was really excellent. It was lovely to see Shani again and it had some REALLY entertaining segments to the main quest. The wedding and the heist and the ghost house and so on and so on. Just more excellent work from CD Projekt Red. Olgeird is a wonderful new character, as is Gaunter O'Dimm.

It also has one of the best pieces of music in the entire game that is ENTIRELY easy to miss.

Click to expand...
I'm due to play the expansion... but maybe after I finish this game of XCOM 2.....

Also, the track of Witcher 3 is deceivingly good... my favorite?

 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I sit here at work and think "I should really replay some Kerbal Space Program" and then when I get home I suddenly turn "mehhhhhh." Last night I discovered I've totally lost my edge in Killing Floor. I completely suck now. It was painful. I died in the first round 3 times. The FIRST round. The "easy gimme money" round. Aagghhh.

Maybe it was because I was playing on the couch on my laptop, but still.
 
Dei

Dei

GasBandit said:
I sit here at work and think "I should really replay some Kerbal Space Program" and then when I get home I suddenly turn "mehhhhhh." Last night I discovered I've totally lost my edge in Killing Floor. I completely suck now. It was painful. I died in the first round 3 times. The FIRST round. The "easy gimme money" round. Aagghhh.

Maybe it was because I was playing on the couch on my laptop, but still.
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I tend to play typing games or controller games if I'm laying in bed on my laptop, because trying to keyboard/mouse is actually pretty hard.
 
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