What are you playing?

[figmentPez]

Just finished Red Faction Guerrilla, and it was a very good game.

Just started Sam & Max S3E4 Beyond the Alley of the Dolls. Very funny so far, but mostly for the totally awesome easter egg! Anyone who follows TTG knows that they love Team Fortress 2 (they have a TF2 server they play on), and since Sam & Max items are in TF2, I guess it's only logical that something from TF2 would end up in Sam & Max. Here's a pic. It doesn't provide any game spoilers, but in case anyone wants to be as surprised as possible after all I've already said:

Spoiler

Second spoiler for description of interaction with easter egg, and a Youtube vid I found:

Spoiler

The first click and Sam says something about it supplying free health, ammo, cupcakes, clues and enlightenment, but that it's empty.

Second click on the dispenser and Sam pulls out a wrench and bangs on the dispenser. Keep doing this and eventually the dispenser upgrades and reveals a container of Banang.

A final click has Sam reach for the Banang, but the dispenser makes a sound like it's being sapped, and the Banang gets closed inside. Pan back to reveal that Max unplugged the dispenser.

 

[Frank]

Been playing DDO. I am getting into it with a buddy though running out of content is happening sooner and sooner now. SO many pay to play areas that are labelled, but often not obviously. So, you'll see there's a quest in an area, you go to the area just to learn to enter it, you need to buy the adventure pack. Crud.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Deus Ex.

Found the game on sale, re-released on dvd with Invisible War also on the disc.

Invisible war is terrible, but it was worth it just for Deus Ex.

... and I even already own Deus Ex.

 

[AshburnerX]

Starcraft 1. It's about the only game that I own that I can still run with just VGA graphics... I REALLY need to replace my video card.

 

[figmentPez]

I'm going to cancel my Gametap subscription when my current year is up (in October, I think), so I've been trying as many games as I can. Especially genres that I've never played before, or haven't played in a while:

* Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - interesting, but I decided I like my shooters with less realism.
* X-Com UFO Defense - I got interested in this one after seeing Spoony do a Let's Play of it. I gave up after realizng that the interface is showing it's age. There are, apparently, next to no pop-ups or tool tips. If you don't know what a button does, RTFM! I can see why this game is a classic, but I'm not sure it's for me.
* Tomb Raider Anniversary - the controls felt clunky and the gameplay seemed bland. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a shot, but it didn't impress me.
* MDK - the old pre-mouse & keyboard controls were not something I wanted to take the time to get used to. Plus it promised a higher level of difficulty than I want in a game right now.
* Civilization IV: Colonization - I've never played a Civ game before, though I have played SM Alpha Centauri. Maybe it's because I'm tired, but the interface for this didn't seem very user friendly and I figured I'd have to take too long to pick up the game. I'm sure I'd like it, but I'm not going to take the time to get into it, and risk being sucked in.
* King's Bounty: The Legend - barely started this one, but it seems fun. I'm not sure if I'm up for strategic thinking at the moment, though.


I've also been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2, which is awesome. I really love playing Engineer, but I'm switching around between classes more than ever. I've had some really stellar rounds as almost every class (I still suck at Demoman.)

 

[Null]

Tekken 5 - great graphics, and fun, though the AI is very wonky. Round 1, AI can't dodge or block a thing, easy perfect. Round 2, you don't have time to input a command before you've lost the match. Final Match, wild card. Interestingly, I've found that King and Steve Fox are fairly easy to blow through Story Mode with.

Gran Turismo 3 and 4 - beautiful games with awesome vehicles, but they're driving sims, and I prefer my driving games a bit more arcadey - Burnout 3 Takedown is still my favorite, by far. I don't want to have to figure out 3 different sets of gear ratios just to be competitive at Beginner level. On the other hand, victory in GT3 is very sweet. I wouldn't know about winning in GT4.

Armored Core Last Raven - Way to suck the fun out of the series. It doesn't play like AC3 or AC: Silent Line, you have to tune your shit even more than in Gran Turismo or else just walking through the mission will overheat your mech, and the plot is fairly depressing / nihilistic. Basically, you're one of 23 Ravens (robot pilots) left after a cataclysm. Over the course of the 24 hours the game takes place during, you're all going to kill each other, so that in the end, you are the Last Raven in a crapsack post-apocalyptic world. All 6 endings lead to that result, it's just a matter of who your final battles are against.

Samurai Showdown Anthology - I really don't understand why you'd play 3 or 4 over 2, 5, or 6. They're in there for completeness' sake, I guess. Dated NeoGeo graphics mar what should be a really solid fighting game. The gameplay is great, it just winds up looking a bit disappointing.

 

[Hailey Knight]

A couple of recent purchases I'm playing a bit of:

Fallout 3: GOTY Edition: I seem to be plugging through this pretty slowly, but I'm enjoying it a lot. I've barely bothered with the main plot, instead just exploring, checking things out, keeping my karma up. I'll probably play through it as an evil person at another time. The world feels expansive in the best of ways, like an open frontier.

Persona 3: Portable version. I found it odd that the game took so long to get going where I could do or choose anything, but once the lengthy beginning passes, this is addicting and fun. Trying new Persona fusions, exploring Tartarus, and managing the schedules for social links and attributes sounds like busywork and dungeon-crawling on paper, but in game it all works for an enjoyable experience. I'm not surprised Spoony brought this up in his review blasting Final Fantasy XIII; there are some minor similarities (auto-battle, only controlling main character), but done so much better here. I can see why people spend 100 hours playing this.

 

[AshburnerX]

A couple of recent purchases I'm playing a bit of:

Fallout 3: GOTY Edition: I seem to be plugging through this pretty slowly, but I'm enjoying it a lot. I've barely bothered with the main plot, instead just exploring, checking things out, keeping my karma up. I'll probably play through it as an evil person at another time. The world feels expansive in the best of ways, like an open frontier.

Persona 3: Portable version. I found it odd that the game took so long to get going where I could do or choose anything, but once the lengthy beginning passes, this is addicting and fun. Trying new Persona fusions, exploring Tartarus, and managing the schedules for social links and attributes sounds like busywork and dungeon-crawling on paper, but in game it all works for an enjoyable experience. I'm not surprised Spoony brought this up in his review blasting Final Fantasy XIII; there are some minor similarities (auto-battle, only controlling main character), but done so much better here. I can see why people spend 100 hours playing this.

You can control your party members in Persona 3 PSP. You just need to adjust a setting.

 

[Null]

I think one of the things about Persona 3 (and 4) is that the characters have personalities that are easy to identify with, as opposed to melodramatic secrets and roles but no depth. But more than that, I think it's that Persona just doesn't take itself as seriously as a Final Fantasy does, and allows you to have more fun with it.

 

[Hailey Knight]

A couple of recent purchases I'm playing a bit of:

Fallout 3: GOTY Edition: I seem to be plugging through this pretty slowly, but I'm enjoying it a lot. I've barely bothered with the main plot, instead just exploring, checking things out, keeping my karma up. I'll probably play through it as an evil person at another time. The world feels expansive in the best of ways, like an open frontier.

Persona 3: Portable version. I found it odd that the game took so long to get going where I could do or choose anything, but once the lengthy beginning passes, this is addicting and fun. Trying new Persona fusions, exploring Tartarus, and managing the schedules for social links and attributes sounds like busywork and dungeon-crawling on paper, but in game it all works for an enjoyable experience. I'm not surprised Spoony brought this up in his review blasting Final Fantasy XIII; there are some minor similarities (auto-battle, only controlling main character), but done so much better here. I can see why people spend 100 hours playing this.

You can control your party members in Persona 3 PSP. You just need to adjust a setting.[/QUOTE]

You can change their tactics, but I haven't seen a full control option. Otherwise, your main character's death wouldn't cause immediate game over, because controlling another character, you could use Revival Bread.

 

[AshburnerX]

You can change their tactics, but I haven't seen a full control option.

You want to select the Direct Command tactic.

Otherwise, your main character's death wouldn't cause immediate game over, because controlling another character, you could use Revival Bread.

No, you'd still be dead.

Spoiler

The contract you signed with Nyx at the start of the game explicitly states that you accept the consequences of your actions from this point on. This means that, like in life, you don't get a redo when you fuck up. Your playing for keeps while everyone else is playing a different game, with it's own rules.

 

[figmentPez]

I've picked up playing Titan Quest again. Kind of a waste of the remaining time in my Gametap subscription, but I'm having a lot of fun.

I'm going through Epic difficulty with my Soothsayer (Nature / Spirit), which is going smoothly, especially after the beating my pets took in the last act of Normal difficulty. I'm at level 51 and just got to Chang'An in Act 3. Right now I'm farming peng claw because I want some to put on a sabertooth sword if I find one.

I've also started a second character to act as a mule/change of pace. I just hit level 10 in Dream, and I'm planning to add Storm at some point. Between the items I've passed over from my first character, and some truly amazing drops, this character is just tearing through enemies. Really fun to play.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Gotta remember to save or heal when things are getting dicey. I hate losing a half hour's progress due to my own hubris. -_- It's been a while since I liked an RPG enough to care.

Little Big Planet: Well, this game is pretty damn fun. I'm enjoying the normal levels, but some of the user-made content is fucking excellent. I look forward to making my own--I'm really surprised at home simple the editing tools are. They're even simpler than old RPGMaker 2000.

 

[Jay]

Downloaded Mafia 2 as the review for the game are lackluster at best. Literally finished it in one sitting with less than 7 hours played. The storyline starts strong but ends weekly. Ending was kinda neat. Gameplay is fun thought I dislike the concept of a sandbox world without... toys. You cannot do anything and with so much effort in the game it sorely paled to GTA4. So much effort in the ambiance, and graphical details but left little time to explore it. No point really in stealing cars as the game does a mediocre job of "saving" your car as my pimp ride disappeared thrice during missions and with the storyline... umm... limiting you, the whole experience felt very very linear. In the end, this game made me want to play GTA 4 again.... which I probably will... i mean... what can compare taking a tart out on a date and banging her and then go on the internet and read her blog about it?

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Final Fantasy XIII

Not so much "playing" as "watching" since I spent 90% of the game with the controller in my lap, going from cutscene to cutscene. The playing part of it was walking five feet to a cut scene...or a battle. The battle would last all of 30 seconds, with me basically hitting the X button repeatedly until everything was dead. The cutscenes themselves explained nothing about the story, the setting or the characters. The writing was horrible, the lines delivered were horrible and the characters were bland as all hell.

That's after only playing about two hours or so. I've heard that it gets better 20 hours in, but fuck that. This wasn't even a game. This was a movie where I got to push a button every couple of minutes. I felt about as inclusive in this game as the lighting guy at a concert.

 

[Jay]

Final Fantasy XIII

Not so much "playing" as "watching" since I spent 90% of the game with the controller in my lap, going from cutscene to cutscene. The playing part of it was walking five feet to a cut scene...or a battle. The battle would last all of 30 seconds, with me basically hitting the X button repeatedly until everything was dead. The cutscenes themselves explained nothing about the story, the setting or the characters. The writing was horrible, the lines delivered were horrible and the characters were bland as all hell.

That's after only playing about two hours or so. I've heard that it gets better 20 hours in, but fuck that. This wasn't even a game. This was a movie where I got to push a button every couple of minutes. I felt about as inclusive in this game as the lighting guy at a concert.

The hate is strong in this one.

*approves*

*Goes back to play FF3... again*

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Do you mean 3 or 6? Though I call it 6, now, it will always be 3 in my heart.

Also, you know what my fave FF is and possibly one of my favourite games? FFIV. It's the perfect Final Fantasy and in a lot of ways, the perfect game story. Though I love VI, my issue with it is that the game gives you all these great individual abilities for each character...but by the end of the game, you're relying almost 99% on magic. Then, everyone just becomes a magic caster and loses what was fun or unique about them in the beginning. That's why I'm not a fan of the job systems or anything where every character can potentially be the same as the other.

IV, though? Each character had their strengths throughout the whole game. The story was consistently getting larger and larger. Don't get me wrong. As I said, I love VI, but I felt the momentum for the story came to a grinding halt at the halfway point, with the world ending. Then, it was like a game of Pokemon, where you go around the world, getting all the characters back and then going after the big guy.

 

[Jay]

I agree on all fronts but let's keep the FF hate after "6" for an entire different thread altogether. I haven't played 13 yet but I did play 12... I was halfway into the game when I realized that I was simply setting up "macros" for my guys for combat. The storyline sucked a dick too.... so I'm not surprised about 13. I'll definitely rent it one day this winter break then laugh at how bad they made another game and hope spoony rips them a new one soon enough.

 

[Shegokigo]

My order of perfect FFs?

Tactics
4
9
6
1
5
7
10
10-2
8
2
3

11 was an MMO so I can't really count it and I've yet to finish 12. Which also means I haven't even touched 13 yet.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Damn good list, Sheg. I was never crazy about Tactics, myself. I couldn't get past the fact that it took ages to do one battle. I'd like to revisit it one of these days to give it a second chance.

I loved 9 up until a certain point. The third pasrt of the game got...weird. At first, it was this great, pure fantasy setting, but then it started getting into alternate realities and such. I can't even remmeber the final boss because I seem to recall it coming totally out of left field.

 

[checkeredhat]

Just beat it this morning with NegaScott. I think that I'm done with it now. Atleast until the final unlockable character is released.

 

[SpecialKO]

Valkyria Chronicles

I'm a tactics junkie, so I'm freakin' lovin' this game. I love how they combined turn-based and real-time into a single system that avoids twitch gaming while maintaining the idea that if you run into your enemies LOS, they'll just start shooting at you as you move. And then on their turn, they'll shoot you some more.

 

[Shegokigo]

Currently Playing:

WoW, Red Dead Redemption, Dead Space, Golden Sun, Fallout 3, L4D2

in rotation.

 

[Jay]

Damn good list, Sheg. I was never crazy about Tactics, myself. I couldn't get past the fact that it took ages to do one battle. I'd like to revisit it one of these days to give it a second chance.

I loved 9 up until a certain point. The third pasrt of the game got...weird. At first, it was this great, pure fantasy setting, but then it started getting into alternate realities and such. I can't even remmeber the final boss because I seem to recall it coming totally out of left field.

Dude, the moment I put in that 3rd disk and SAT THERE WATCHING A 40 MINUTE LONG CUTSCENE AS THEY RIPPED THE SOUL OF THIS GAME with bullshit about a 2nd planet, no souls or whatever the fuck I watched had me do the following:

- Jay takes a deep breath.
- Jay presses the eject button and puts the CD carefully back in its case
- Calmed call friend, telling him I'm passing by and giving back his game
- Drove 30 minutes (which took less long than THE CUTSCENE), gave back game in perfect condition. Thanking him on the loan and the experience.
- Got in car and drove to the bar all the while lamenting like a bitch on how they are fucken ruined the franchise.

I was able to endure the "new graphics" and the fact the storyline wasn't strong but the combat mechanics was kinda neat... then that happened. I couldn't take it anymore. What kind of florescent grass are they smoking?


My list goes the following :

6
4
5
Tactics
1
3
2
10
10-2
12
9
7
8

And let's be honest, the FF series has been sucking a dick well over a decade now.

---------- Post added at 07:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:04 PM ----------

Oh and what am I playing? I just did a campaign on Mount and Blade Warband. Tomorrow I'm buying NHL11 and Friday going to play some LOTRO again. I've been rewatching my movies from my collector's set. Trying to finish Metro 2033 as well.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Aside from FFXIII, I've been playing:

-Saints Row 2: The first PS3 game I played and I've yet to beat it. It's my own fault, though. I decided to restart the whole game and try getting as many of the side missions as I could before continuing on with the story missions. Except the racing because I hate races.
-Stranglehold: Ehhhh, I wasn't crazy about it. Like Wet, I don't like spending half a game in slow-motion.

 

[Terrik]

Starcraft 2, Napoleon Total War

 

[crono1224]

Just started playing FF6(or 3 or whatever) again, thinking about trying to play Ogre Battle for SNES too but unsure. Also have been playing a fair amount of TF2, but that is usually when i just want to hop into something quickly and have a lil fun. I thinking bout playing through Bioshock again, or maybe playing Masters of Orion 2/ one of the civilizations again, just not sure been on an old school binge lately.

 

[Gusto]

The other night I watched Batman Begins after picking it up on DVD for 10 bucks, and that got my jones goin', so I reinstalled and have put 8 more hours into playing Batman: Arkham Asylum.

This time I'm paying a lot more attention to the Riddler stuff, which is actually making me enjoy the game more than I did the first time around. Especially since I'm finding all of the interview tapes, Arkham Chronicles and character trophies.

I'm also changing the way I clear rooms of armed enemies too, opting to distract, isolate, drop down behind them, and take them down silently before retreating to the ceiling. Most of my takedowns in my first playthrough were of the inverted variety, which meant a lot of waiting around. Now that I'm branching out a bit I feel a lot more like Batman, and less predictable overall.

Anyway, super looking forward to AA2.

 

[Joe Johnson]

Monday Night Combat!

Yes, they obviously rip off TF2 quite a bit, but I don't care, it's still pretty awesome.

 

[Andi]

Too much on too many platforms...
*sigh*

You know... I'd like to get a life...

 

[Null]

Outlaw Golf 2, for something different. It's so-so across the board, really.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Playing Final Fantasy Tactics on PSP. I'm still thrown a bit by the new (over-written) translation... I just played the old version so many, many times that I know what it used to say the moment it comes up, and honestly was more direct and to the point.

But ignoring that... I'm just noticing in the part where Delita and Algus fight outside Igros and Delita storms off, with the new translation having him call Algus "ill-bred", and I wondered why I'd never thought, he should've attached Algus's bloodline more directly about his traitor grandfather, the relative who destroyed the family name. That would've cut more nicely than just storming off saying he trusts Ramza.

...This has no point, just something I'm noting. I mean, Delita's a commoner with common insults . Don't worry, Delita. You're still part of one of my all-time favorite games.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Dead Space

I had tried this a few months ago and was really hard on it. A co-worker raved and raved about it, saying it was so scary. It caused me to jump a few times, but that's it. And the way the aliens popped up was so predictable that became space whack-a-mole.

But you know...I borrowed it from a friend recently to give it a second chance. And the game really is well put together. One of my biggest pet peeves about games - cutscenes - is non-existent. Everything occurs in real time and it's pretty engrossing because of it. The story is still cliche as all hell and it still kind of feels like space whacka-mole, but I'm enjoying it an awful lot more this time around. Can't explain why.

Anyone else have that happen? Giving a game a second chance that you once hated?

 

[Hailey Knight]

I agree that Dead Space is not much in the way of scariness, but I think it's really well put together and fun.

As for games I liked given a second chance... There are probably a few I can't recall that I hated at first due to not understand how to play them, but then later liked. I don't know; most of the time I know whether I like a game or not enough to play it through from early on.

World of Warcraft was one I thought of as dull, then got into again later and enjoyed for 2 and a half years before sliding back to hating it.

Half-Life 2 was a big one. I played it to a point and was so frustrated by the difference in atmosphere and puzzle approach that I gave up when my save files were erased. A couple years later I went back to give it another shot and ended up blasting through it and the following Episodes within 2 weeks. Excellent fucking game.

 

[Seraphyn]

I'm playing Company of Heroes again. Still the most fun RTS around, imo.