What are you playing?

[Joe Molotov]

Haha, now I'm further breaking the game by fighting the guards in Flynn that are basically there for show and you're not even supposed to fight. Physical attacks are do almost nil to them, but most of my chars have Lv. 5-6 attack spells and are just beasting on them (plus Teleport, of course). My stats are all increasing like crazy after every battle, and I'm spamming all my best spells to get those leveled too. Now I'm just leveling up my Toad spell for the lulz.

Also, another thing I was going to mention earlier but I forgot: Monster Closets. WTF, Square. Who thought it was a good idea to fill your dungeons full of doors, and have 9 out of 10 of these doors take you to an empty room where you get attacked. And God help you if you don't open every single one of them, because that 1 time out of 10, it might have some treasure or the staircase to the next floor.

[Positive Touch]

i warned you bro

i told you about doors

[hampster]

I picked up Magicite (from steam on early access). Its basically Terraria crossed with a Rougelike. Hard as shit too, I can barely make it past the first few enemies. The game needs a bunch of tweaks and the crafting system should be better but I'm enjoying it so far

I also grabbed Card City Nights. A fun (but maybe too simple) card game. I wish the adventure game elements of it were more fleshed out

[Cerveza mas fina]

4-2 is the first place in DS i keep dying, there is some fucking ghosts that backstab me to death before I see they are there. Maybe its cause I played this bit with no sounds.

Must have lost like 100k souls there so far in a few deaths.

Gonna try again tomorrow.

All that is left now is 1-4, 4-2 and the whole of 5.

[Bebpo]

Finished Banshee's Last Cry, it was ok.  Worth the $4 and a few hours of reading, but nothing overly special.  The new game+ story is wtf

[magus]

Finished Banshee's Last Cry, it was ok.  Worth the $4 and a few hours of reading, but nothing overly special.  The new game+ story is wtf

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyfzii_game-center-cx-s15-127-pac-man-2_videogames

skip to 28 minute

[Yulwei]

Decided to pop .hack//Outbreak in my ps2 last night. Between yesterday and today I played three and a half hours before I couldn't go on anymore. I loved Infection and Mutation when they came out over a decade ago, but holy hell these games have not aged well. They weren't even very good back then but I was still able to look past the many flaws and enjoy the silly premise but, yea... this shit is almost unplayable now. I'll stick with G.U. whenever I want to play some .hack.

[The Sceneman]

Late to the party here, but finally grabbed a copy of Saints Row IV on sale and started it last night.

Good god the game is funny. The opening mission was such an incisive parody of AAA gaming, and the game is perfectly self aware in the best way. I literally lol'ed when I saw the Nolan North option for character voice in the character creator. Brilliant stuff

[Himu]

Enjoy it for now, the honeymoon ends pretty soon.

[Joe Molotov]

Enjoy it for now, the honeymoon ends pretty soon.

Yeah, the game's only ~20 hours long.

[Himu]

I can understand why people like SRIV, but so far beyond the intro, it hasn't really grabbed me. Oh well, it was only 30 dollars.

[Bebpo]

It's fun to play and the story missions are enjoyable.


It's also OCD collect-a-thon up the ass and the music is worse than SR3 and you're totally overpowered and there's no challenge.

[The Sceneman]

The classical station is better, theres a Paula Abdul song, music is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than SR3. That Kanye song is one of my least favourite songs. TBH I would generally listen to the Beatles over that song. Man I hate Power.

[Himu]

To be fair, SR games are never about the challenge. We're talking about a series where you can unlock unlimited ammo for guns less than halfway through the story. However, the lack of variety, the collectathon side missions, and the bulk of the story missions weigh SRIV down. Honestly, after IV I think it's time to give Saints Row a rest. Volition beat a dead horse and the only people I really see liking the game aren't Saints Row fans, but Saints Row The Third and IV fans.

As for music, I disagree. The Mix is way better. SRTT's music was disappointing compared to 2's.

[bork]

I give SR3 the nod for better soundtrack just for Return Of The Mack alone.  That was all that I had set to play.   

I'd be fine if SRIV was the last game.  Either start all over again with the next one or make a brand new game that's similar.  I don't see what's left to do with the Saints after IV though...they outdid themselves in terms of insanity.

[Positive Touch]

true fans know the series died with 2

it also started there

[Himu]

I didn't really mean it that way.

[benjipwns]

2 is my favorite and I love The Third and IV.

I'm really optimistic about V. Remember that Volition was not only also working on another crappy Red Faction, but The Third was rushed with a new engine and tons of cut content* and then IV started as a midquel DLC that got expanded for non-game reasons and was pushed out pretty quickly as well, all while THQ was imploding.

I'm being positive and assuming that the IV they were talking about in the past that was supposed to go in another direction, is now V for next gen.

*EDIT: I think it was on Tom Chick's podcast where the one guy from Volition said they essentially cut two acts which is why the plot jumps all around in the middle and fills the gameplay gap with activities.

[bork]

My favorite is...all of the Saints games that I played.  I had a fuckin' blast with SR2, SR3, and SRIV.  And that's all that really matters in the end.

Couldn't get into Red Faction.

[Himu]

2 is my favorite and I love the Third as well.

I only meant that people who tend to like IV, tend to not be big on 1 or 2. They like 3 and 4 for wholly different reasons. Reasons that I didn't mind in 3, but alienate me in 4. Saints Row went from a gangster game to playing as the president of the united states and killing an alien menace. Those are...wildly different, and in a way, appeal to different demographics.

[bork]

2 is my favorite and I love the Third as well.

I only meant that people who tend to like IV, tend to not be big on 1 or 2. They like 3 and 4 for wholly different reasons. Reasons that I didn't mind in 3, but alienate me in 4. Saints Row went from a gangster game to playing as the president of the united states and killing an alien menace. Those are...wildly different, and in a way, appeal to different demographics.

The story got bigger and crazier each time...I love that about these games. 

[Himu]

I think it puts them against a wall. How can V ever hope to top IV now? We're killing aliens and it's in the Matrix, and shit.

[bork]

I think it puts them against a wall. How can V ever hope to top IV now? We're killing aliens and it's in the Matrix, and shit.

Like I said earlier, just start over.  Focus on a new engine with new things to do and improved game play.  If they were to actually keep it going, there's one thing that they haven't done yet (has anyone done this in an open-world game?)- time travel.  Why have one big city when you can have crazy ass shit going on in various eras?

[benjipwns]

I think of it more as a satire series that went from poking fun at just GTA to include the rest of gaming and more, more!, MORE!!! mentality. IV, I kinda see as really the capstone for the generation, where else can you go, and the joke is always "IN SPACE!" It was probably worth it for Zinyak alone.

The Police Squad! of open world games.

[Himu]

Ugh. Make a new series.

[Himu]

I also contend that the series is not satire; it is a parody.

[benjipwns]

That's fine.

2 was certainly more grounded and directly going after topping GTA in absurdity but already by The Third you had crazy things like clones, the Decker world, VTOLs, hover bikes, zombies, a giant flying battleship and Mayor Burt Reynolds.

One place they could go, though it might be pretty costly or difficult, and that I'd enjoy is to pick up on the time travel thread. Where the missions would send you back in time to older versions of Steelport (or whatever the new city is) and then you come back and the shit you had done changes the open world of the "modern" city. Like after one mission when you come back the mall is named Lone Pine Mall instead or there's a skyscraper where a park used to be or what have you.

[Himu]

Time travel sounds cool, but could be a bit hard to pull off in a sandbox game with the sheer amount of assets required.

SRTT definitely upped the parody amount. I liked that it had genre parody to outright goofy shit in it, like zombies, wrestling, flying battleships, Tron, vtols, and hover bikes. I thought it had the best medium of being grounded and outright silly. SRIV kinda pushes things a bit. Not that it's bad because of any of that. I think when it's working within the frame of a parody, SRIV is really on all gears and it's absolutely hilarious. But then you get to the game part. I guess this is what happens when you're trying to recycle a dlc expansion and make it in to a full fledged 60 dollar game.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Finished Demon Souls.

Game is good but flawed in some ways. Without any form of guide it would take 50/60 hours of tedious trial and error or wearing enemies down to get anything done. With some guidance it feels like you are too powerfull really, especially since herbs are so easy to get.

Imho the game could have been better without any leveling system and just relying on balancing every encounter around that. This way they would have been able to keep the randomness it takes to obtain some items.

[demi]

Game's fine as is. You sound like someone who would complain about Zork.

"Without a guide its just trial and error. 3/10 would not play."

Casual scum

[brob]

Beat Demon's Souls without a guide in 30ish hours. Never figured out how to get magic tho cus I played a wanderer and the magic vendor was like 'fukk off dummy' because my magic or int stat was too low ~*lel*~

[Cerveza mas fina]

Well I did used a guide to get started, after that it was all pretty easy.

Its not even trial and error really demi, its crazy shit like, have black world tendency, talk to this guy, drop a stone here then do this and voila, you get this piece of gear.

[brob]

getting gear/loot in rpgs is always distinguished mentally-challenged fellow stupid because RNG. It would be so nice if there was some (skill dependent) way to guarantee drops like they did with the tail drops from certain bosses in Dark Souls.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Whats that?

How is Dark Souls compared to Demon in all this randomness? Is it doable without any guides?

I imagine cause its open worldish its only more intimidating

[brob]

Bosses that have tails can have their tails cut off if you attack it enough. It gets you a weapon or a piece of armor 100% of the time. If you don't cut off the tail before the boss dies you don't.

Dark Souls is doable without a guide - there was only one point where I didn't really know where to go (got a key I didn't know where to use), but in general the open world aspect doesn't obfuscate forward progression. Every area leads somewhere worthwhile. Dark Souls has more bits that require/are much easier with ranged attacks tho, which I found a bit annoying since I prefer all melee.

[magus]

Well I did used a guide to get started, after that it was all pretty easy.

Its not even trial and error really demi, its crazy shit like, have black world tendency, talk to this guy, drop a stone here then do this and voila, you get this piece of gear.

there is no world tendency in dark souls,the undead/human thing is still there but being human only let you call reinforcement and has no effect on your HP bar (though there is a negative status effect that cuts the player HP bar in half until he goes into this particular stage to uncurse himself just to annoy the player)

[Cerveza mas fina]

Doesnt sound half bad, might give it Dark Souls another go then.

[magus]

got almost to 4,000 on that retroachievements site,finished link's awakening,a link to the past and wario land... i've spoke many times what i think about the two zelda games (link to the past still overrated as fuck ) so instead i'm going to take the chance to say how freaking much i love wario land



look at that glorious intro with the pirate duck getting chased,hear the super catchy music,marvel at wario grin as he laughs it all,truly 2014 nintendo doesn't hold a fucking candle to 1993 nintendo!

probably gonna do phantasy star iv next, i've actualy never finished the game but i do remember the game tethering between good animu rpg and clunky annoying old rpg

[Fifstar]

Played some of the Swapper and Giana Sisters. Both are okay, but nothing special. Got bored quickly of the Swapper gameplay mechanic and Giana sisters just lacks that simple feel of Mario or Rayman with the 2 different dimension switch buttons. And while they're both good looking games from a technical point of view, I don't like the art style of either game. Guacamelee is clearly the standout game here in this bundle.

[Joe Molotov]

10 hours into FF2, just liberated Fynn and got the White Mask. I guess I'm about halfway through, and the jankness just keeps coming. At this point in the game, I haven't really found a new tier of weapons in like 7 hours other than the Wing Sword, which is about 3 times more powerful than any other weapon at this point. And enemy defenses have increased likewise, to the point where if you're attacking with anything other than a Wing Sword, you're just taking a piss. You can do literally 0 DAMAGE against some enemies with the best non-Wing Sword weapons that money can buy*. So why did I bother leveling my other two characters in Spears and Axes??!?!?!?



*And boy, do I have a lot of money. About 200k Gil, and nothing to spend it on except Elixirs which cost 50k. Everything else costs 500-1000 Gil, including spells, weapons, and armor. Economies, how do they work?

[Bebpo]

Since I'm at the endgame in FFXIII-2 I went back and started getting all the fragments in each area and a few areas in...it's kind of lame.

I like exploring in XIII-2.  The areas look nice, the music's great, there's hidden treasures and branches; it's fun filling out the map and the fights are entertaining along the way.  But the sidequests suck, they're almost always "go run across the map and throw mog at this half-invisible thing."  Even worse, there's like 160 fragments in the game, which is a hell of a lot, and yet they do NOTHING.  Like why should I bother collecting these things?  At first when I was playing it I thought you wanted fragments because they unlocked new areas to explore, but those are only the wild artefacts.  The rest give you some stupid database entry that I don't care about, there's like no gameplay reward to getting them all.

So I think I'm just gonna try to get the last few wild artefacts and open all the gates so I can check out all the locations and then finish the story and not look back. 

[chronovore]

To be fair, SR games are never about the challenge. We're talking about a series where you can unlock unlimited ammo for guns less than halfway through the story. However, the lack of variety, the collectathon side missions, and the bulk of the story missions weigh SRIV down. Honestly, after IV I think it's time to give Saints Row a rest. Volition beat a dead horse and the only people I really see liking the game aren't Saints Row fans, but Saints Row The Third and IV fans.

As for music, I disagree. The Mix is way better. SRTT's music was disappointing compared to 2's.

I disagree. SR3 is less difficult than its predecessors (and I haven't finished SR4 to discuss it). SR1 was plenty difficult, and SR2's Activities were quite... infuriating... in their design.

I'm recalling 8 stages to each Activity, and the Drug Dealing gameplay was just insane. In the end, I was only able to clear it after turning most the the map to Saints' territory, consistently mashing "recruit" as I drove through, bringing fresh, well-armed Saints to aid me against the madly pursuing cops and gangs.

The Tow Truck stuff added in SR2 was basically impossible to complete without gaming its own system; I'm not 100% sure, but I recall doing it in co-op, as the gang members defending the target vehicle would attack the tow, so the co-op partner could wheel the target vehicle back, otherwise the target vehicle would consistently be destroyed.

[Bebpo]

So with the Yakuza Isshin demo on PS4, we get first playable glimpse at how Japanese cross-gen looks/feels.  Basically, outside the cutscenes (which look really identical since they're 30fps and the cutscenes were usually pre-rendered in the PS3 games anyhow), the game looks and feels really nice at 1080p/60fps.  It has a sharp crisp look and feels super smooth without ever dropping a frame.  If they start using some AA (jaggies aren't bad, especially compared to sub-720p PS3 Yakuza games; pretty minor but still there) it'd look like how I always wanted PS3 Japanese games to look. 

So yeah, it's basically PS3 emulator'd edition; Japanese PS3 quality gaming without the IQ defects and better framerate.  It's not enough to really convince anyone who wasn't getting a game to jump and get it on PS4, but if it's a PS3 game you'd want to get anyhow, it's definitely a nice improvement. 

Right now there's just Yakuza Isshin, Dynasty Warriors 8XL and Guilty Gear X3rd announced for cross-gens.  Fingers crossed that Tales of Zestria gets a PS4 port along with the eventual Gundam v Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost.  P5 is probably a lost cause since Atlus is too small and can just re-release it on PS4 a year later at full price with some additions as a director's cut. 

Anyhow, my retail disc shipped this morning, so looking forward to playing it on Monday.  First RGG/Yakuza game since Kenzan!  Should be refreshing since I'm not burnt out on the series anymore having skipped 3/4/5/Of the Dead

[Bebpo]

first one since kenzan and it's the one that's aping kenzan as closely as possible.  fission mailed on avoiding the burnout, duder, haha.

Well it's not like I even remember Kenzan at this point   It's been...a while!  Like in the demo I had no idea how the combat worked, whereas in the RGG5 demo I knew what I was doing since RGG combat is RGG combat and only Kenzan kind of mixed it up.

But yeah, I would have liked to play 4 since everyone loves it, but never got to 3/4.

[tiesto]

Miku Flick 2 on IPad. It's not nearly as fun or intuitive as the Project Diva games (especially in the half-localized state it's in), but hey I can get to play with mai waifu Luka while at work and then when the boss comes over I can just say "oh yeah, I'm using the Ipad to test out how mobile-friendly these IEP forms I made are, no I'm not playing loli animu games or anything...".

Also Bravely Default which is sooooo gooood.

And going here tomorrow http://www.modernpinballnyc.com/ to play some pinball with the LI Arcade Club gang.

[cool breeze]

So with the Yakuza Isshin demo on PS4, we get first playable glimpse at how Japanese cross-gen looks/feels.  Basically, outside the cutscenes (which look really identical since they're 30fps and the cutscenes were usually pre-rendered in the PS3 games anyhow), the game looks and feels really nice at 1080p/60fps.  It has a sharp crisp look and feels super smooth without ever dropping a frame.  If they start using some AA (jaggies aren't bad, especially compared to sub-720p PS3 Yakuza games; pretty minor but still there) it'd look like how I always wanted PS3 Japanese games to look. 

So yeah, it's basically PS3 emulator'd edition; Japanese PS3 quality gaming without the IQ defects and better framerate.  It's not enough to really convince anyone who wasn't getting a game to jump and get it on PS4, but if it's a PS3 game you'd want to get anyhow, it's definitely a nice improvement. 

Right now there's just Yakuza Isshin, Dynasty Warriors 8XL and Guilty Gear X3rd announced for cross-gens.  Fingers crossed that Tales of Zestria gets a PS4 port along with the eventual Gundam v Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost.  P5 is probably a lost cause since Atlus is too small and can just re-release it on PS4 a year later at full price with some additions as a director's cut. 

Anyhow, my retail disc shipped this morning, so looking forward to playing it on Monday.  First RGG/Yakuza game since Kenzan!  Should be refreshing since I'm not burnt out on the series anymore having skipped 3/4/5/Of the Dead

I tried out the demo as well.  yeah, it's an HDier PS3 game.  personally I don't feel the yakuza games benefit much from the frame rate and resolution bump, but the improvements are noticeable.  an example is when you first walk into that main strip; it's solid 60 on PS4 and gets choppy on PS3.  and the load times might be better in the ps4 version. 

random thing to note:  game won't let you stream or record cutscenes and places a "SEGA" logo on the bottom right corner of anything 'shared'

[The Sceneman]

Up to episode 9 in Asura's Wrath, game is:

Very fun simple action sequences and incredible spectacle!

[Joe Molotov]

Reteaching magic every few hours to your revolving fourth character in FF2 is tons of fun. This last guy is {ZOMG SPOILERS}

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the evil Dark Knight

[close]

and he doesn't know a SINGLE spell, not even Death or Hurtmore? And of course, needless to say, he's weak as fuck in every other regard too. Sakaguchi pls

I wonder if I can just drag this clown through the last dungeon. Which judging by the guide is long as fuck and probably full of high def monsters.

[demi]

FF2 is Kawazu, dont blame the almighty Gooch you cunt

[Joe Molotov]

Yeah, I'm about halfway through it and I still got ~60 Ethers in my stock, so I think I got this.

[chronovore]

Up to episode 9 in Asura's Wrath, game is:

Very fun simple action sequences and incredible spectacle!

Stop. Do not tempt me. QTEs galore; I can't stand the things.

[Joe Molotov]

Blood Sword h4x, eat crap in hell (again) Emperor!

[Joe Molotov]

Up to episode 9 in Asura's Wrath, game is:

Very fun simple action sequences and incredible spectacle!

Stop. Do not tempt me. QTEs galore; I can't stand the things.

Asura's Wrath is QTE's up your anoos while binge-watching End of Evangelion, Sengoku Basara, and Fist of the North Star on every drug.

[magus]

yeah i like asura's wrath a lot too, even if it's just QTE those QTE are the most badass thing ever

i particulary like the boss stage that uses dvorak symphony no 9



that said i always complain about the same thing everytime the game gets mentioned here on the bore... capcom got greedy with the game and the game ends on a cliffhanger TO BE CONTINUED it says...

...in the actual proper ending DLC that is

[archie4208]

God of War 2 is so much better than the first game.  The quality of life changes and more varied level design are great.

[archie4208]

That cliffhanger ending

[tiesto]

Up to episode 9 in Asura's Wrath, game is:

Very fun simple action sequences and incredible spectacle!

Stop. Do not tempt me. QTEs galore; I can't stand the things.

Asura's Wrath is QTE's up your anoos while binge-watching End of Evangelion, Sengoku Basara, and Fist of the North Star on every drug.

I'm normally not a fan of QTEs up the ass but damn I absolutely loved Asura's Wraith. The Buddhist themes and design of it, crossed with the oldskool anime style totally sold me. I knew you were gonna love the game Sceneman...

[The Sceneman]

Yeah QTEs generally suck, but they are all good in Asura's Wrath as the set piece and action direction is just so:

I'm happy to do QTEs that involve punching a planet sized dude and making him explode, its a lot more exciting than making a young girl dodge a zombie and all the other zzzzzzz stuff you see in another certain all QTE game.

There is a game there though, there are Panzer Dragoon-lite and Devil May Cry-lite sequences which are enjoyable and challenging enough.

[ferrarimanf355]

Played some more Pinball Arcade, got the standard goals for Black Knight 2000 and Medieval Madness.

Since the World Cup is this year, I'm hoping that there's a snowball's chance in hell to see the Bally World Cup Soccer '94 pinball game, but the licensing for that must be a nightmare and/or EA Sports may charge a ransom for a sublicense for FarSight.



Maybe also Stern's Lord of the Rings game...



... or the Williams No Fear game, but that one might be a hassle too.

[ferrarimanf355]

As long as they can get High Speed or The Getaway in, it's all good. There's so much more they can do though.