What are you playing?

[Bebpo]

Hmm, I think I got sands of time running/looking pretty close to normal but keeping it in 4:3 and doing some .ini editing.  May just start with SoT yet!

[chronovore]

Halo 3 story missions. No, really. My bro-in-law and I both picked it up at launch, both finished two chapters in solo, and said "no thanks."

Here we are with one 360 between us, one TV screen, and Halo 3 supports local co-op. It's pretty fun.

The writing though, especially for the invasive Cortana cutscenes, "I am your sword, I am your shield" -- those are wretched.

[magus]

i'm mainly posting my FF13 escapade on the 360 thread i did but i like it... people says that the game is just a big tunnel with brain dead battles but once again i fail to see how it differs from FFX and it's "match the enemy to the character" system

[demi]

i'm mainly posting my FF13 escapade on the 360 thread i did but i like it... people says that the game is just a big tunnel with brain dead battles but once again i fail to see how it differs from FFX and it's "match the enemy to the character" system

Nailed it so hard. I would ask how it is different from FF12, even. FF13

[demi]

lol, how low do you gotta go to resort to playing Links Crossbow on Wii emulator. Dear god Borys, way to stik to a stereotype

[The Sceneman]

  wow, just wow

[demi]

wow, just wow

this nicca got a Ps3 with all these games and hes like WOW LINKS CROSSBOW IS SOOOO FUN

[fistfulofmetal]

bayonetta is getting pretty fucking awesome near the end.

[Bebpo]

Got Sands of Time running well, a couple hours in now.  Game is still good although the combat is awful and goes on way too long :\

Looks good at 1080p except for the fact you can't see your life bar.  So basically just don't die.



Warrior Within using widescreen hack for 1080p looks good but you can't force AA and the style makes it a bit rough/jaggy looking.  Prince model is polygon starved.



The Two Thrones pic at Native 1080p with 8x AA.  Looks good but what's up with the prince's arms.  Way too skinny.



And man, graphically the series has come a long way

[iconoclast]

1000'd Prince of Persia TFS. I'm surprised by how much I liked it. The combat was kinda eh, but that's to be expected with Ubi games. The platforming was fun though, even if it's pretty automatic. The game's at its best when you have to time the water freezes and disappearing platforms as you're jumping and swinging through the stage. The best part was at the end where you have to time the wall jumps in between the waterfalls. Wish they would have done more stuff like that throughout the game.

Anyway, it was fun. Better than PoP 2008, if only because there are no light seeds to collect. But I'd still rather have a sequel to 2008 if only to get more of that amazing art style and graphics.

[Himu]

i'm mainly posting my FF13 escapade on the 360 thread i did but i like it... people says that the game is just a big tunnel with brain dead battles but once again i fail to see how it differs from FFX and it's "match the enemy to the character" system

Ff10 has variety. It had towns and cities and the occasional dungeon. When the world opens up there's more to do than hunt monsters too. Comparing ff13 and 10 together is silly because they really aren't the same thing. At all.  Whereas by hour 5 in ff10 you have visited multiple locations and the game is just getting started, in ff13 you are literally doing the same thing since hour one. It's a pacing and variety issue. Pacing is not ff10's problem.

[Great Rumbler]

When I got to the first save point and saw that it also acted as the store, I knew there were some serious problems.

[magus]

so you are saying it's okay to have tunnels as long as there are a lot of tunnels and sometimes there is a tunnel with a NPC who's in love with the NPC 2 feets away?

wow the problem of FF13 are bigger than what i would have ever tough..... beside didn't people complain about these temple dungeon where you just had to pick a ball from point A and bring to point B? or wait wait i remember something about the line of "BLITZBALL IS THE WORST MINIGAME EVAH WHY ARE YOU FORCING ME TO PLAY "

by all means maybe it's true that the game drags but i have played way way way waaaaaaaayyyyyyyy worse,i have more fun with the tunnel here than i ever did with the random dungeon in persona 3/4 which is considered PS2 GREATEST RPG EVAH,at least 1) they hired an artist (a good one might i add) to create these tunnel as opposed to copy pasta the whole place 2) sometimes enemy takes from me more than "hit the weak spot" 3) i don't lose any progress when an enemy decide to randomly explode in my face killing me instantly

[Great Rumbler]

The problem is that there's 40 hours of EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You run through tunnels, you fight. That's it. There isn't anything else in the entire game that deviates from that, except for the unplayable cutscenes.

Pacing like that wouldn't be a problem for a 5-6 hour action game, because it makes the pace exciting and fun! And it doesn't last long enough to get tedious.

[demi]

Magus with the real talk. Persona 3/4 is so bad.

[iconoclast]

FF13 is good, but Persona 3 and 4 are like 500x better. Best RPGs ever created (unless you count Demon's Souls)

[Great Rumbler]

Playing through Persona 3 a second time on PSP is 100x better than the playing through the first hour of Final Fantasy XIII.

[magus]

The problem is that there's 40 hours of EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You run through tunnels, you fight. That's it. There isn't anything else in the entire game that deviates from that, except for the unplayable cutscenes.

Pacing like that wouldn't be a problem for a 5-6 hour action game, because it makes the pace exciting and fun! And it doesn't last long enough to get tedious.

but i don't find it tedious at all,i like to see the character learn new skill,i love seeing the new place the game throw at me and heck in a surprising twist i don't even mind the plot and the character,that's what playing a Jrpg should be about,not walking aimless around a generic tundra/desert map or talking with NPC that tell you "the evil empire sure is evil" or trying to fuck everything that has boobs including a robot

[Great Rumbler]

Maybe it's just me here, but I really like having other things to do in my RPGs. You know, exploring the furthest corners of the world, wandering through various cities, finding some sidequests to do for cool weapons, talking to NPCs, and just taking a break from the main storyline from time to time.

[Stoney Mason]

Maybe it's just me here, but I really like having other things to do in my RPGs. You know, exploring the furthest corners of the world, wandering through various cities, finding some sidequests to do for cool weapons, talking to NPCs, and just taking a break from the main storyline from time to time.

You don't have to explain. All this stuff are very normal desires. That's part of why FF13 is so very odd and doesn't feel right. There are lots of ways to evolve the genre. But does anybody really think FF13 is the future of rpg's. Especially if they ever have any hope of expanding their market share in the west.

It's a very odd sidestep of a game. I think in 5 or 6 years we will look back upon it and think wtf were they doing.

As I keep repeating there is very much room for a mainstream story driven RPG that isn't all nichey like a lot of JRPG's feel for westerners. But they are not on the right track to making that game right now.

[Great Rumbler]

I think the TeamXbox review said it best:

Make no mistake—you’ll be fighting a lot. Kitase described Final Fantasy XIII‘s combat as more akin to a first-person shooter than an RPG. You won’t be facing random battles as you traverse through fields and forests. Instead, you’re running down narrow hallways waiting for monsters to jump you. And, for the most part, you can’t avoid enemy encounters, except when the game goes out of its way to tell you that you can: “Hey, check out that lumbering brute over there! It might be a good idea to run past him!” In those cases, yes, you can magically make your way past foes. But unless you use items that specifically enable you to avoid enemies, you’re constantly getting jumped by the next mob of monsters around the corner. Unfortunately, without the conventional RPG downtime of towns and other assorted free exploration, that means that you’re constantly on edge. There’s no reward for getting through a dungeon; your reward is…well, another dungeon.

Yes, I realize that choice is always a bit of an illusion, even in the best games. But the key to good design is to mask that illusion. It’s the oldest trick in entertainment. Whether it’s a book, a play or a movie, you want to feel immersed in the world. Hell, the practice probably goes all the way back to shadow-puppet shows on cave walls. To borrow a silly ad cliché: It’s so easy, a caveman can do it—but apparently, the Final Fantasy XIII team can’t do it. The game is so obviously one straight line that it’s incredibly difficult to take its world seriously.

[EmCeeGrammar]

The difficulty balance was terrible since most of the game was pretty easy until you hit one of frustrating level with one hit deaths and few checkpoints.  It becomes about memorizing the levels or inaccuracies with the controls*. 

The worst had to be the rocket levels; it was almost comical with how often they'd put you in a stupid rocket with crap controls and one hit deaths.  It is the bad kind of difficult and it makes me realize how much team meat got it with super meat boy. 

*this game has some of the worst waggle I've played in a wii game.  In the platforming sections, failure to register the waggle was the cause of death 9/10 times.  Btw, this is coming from someone who liked the waggle spin from New Super Mario Bros. 

Wrong wrong wrong.  I seriously wonder if the detractors have subpar motor skills, or can't tell that the game's programming makes it so Donkey kong
a) can't roll during the frames he turns around
b) can't roll until he has SOME momentum

Because I only have a problem rolling consistently off of tiny platforms, which refers back to the fact forward momentum would be hard to acquire in that situation.  The trial and error complaints are unfounded as well, I can count the number of trial and error instances on one hand, and 2 or three of those are on Smokey Peaks in world 8, a silhouette level that obscures visual cues that would prevent death otherwise.  So yeah, it is bullshit when it happens, but its rare.  Only rocket level I didn't like was the back end of the bat level.  It was really fun until the big one starts spitting kameameahs, I got mad at that level.

[EmCeeGrammar]

Out of all the games I could be playing right now I am having great fun with Link's Crossbow Training for the Wii emu. Why do I like it so much?

1) based on best Zelda game ever
2) looks great
3) it has pretty varied gameplay: shoot targets or defend from Stalfoses or move through a dungeon and kill 25 Moblins in given time etc.

Aiming the crossbow with the mouse/ Wiimote shows how utterly shitty analog controls are for every FPS game ever on consoles.

Pretty funny how Nintendo can make even the lamest genre (on-rail shooter) enjoyable, huh.

Jesus christ, you can get sin and punishment 2 for super cheap mang. Its got swords and guns and multipliers and giant seahorse bosses and castles and and and

[iconoclast]

Yeah, Sin & Punishment 2 is the best game on the wii.

[cool breeze]

Link's Crossbow Training is rad

The difficulty balance was terrible since most of the game was pretty easy until you hit one of frustrating level with one hit deaths and few checkpoints.  It becomes about memorizing the levels or inaccuracies with the controls*. 

The worst had to be the rocket levels; it was almost comical with how often they'd put you in a stupid rocket with crap controls and one hit deaths.  It is the bad kind of difficult and it makes me realize how much team meat got it with super meat boy. 

*this game has some of the worst waggle I've played in a wii game.  In the platforming sections, failure to register the waggle was the cause of death 9/10 times.  Btw, this is coming from someone who liked the waggle spin from New Super Mario Bros. 

Wrong wrong wrong.  I seriously wonder if the detractors have subpar motor skills, or can't tell that the game's programming makes it so Donkey kong
a) can't roll during the frames he turns around
b) can't roll until he has SOME momentum

Because I only have a problem rolling consistently off of tiny platforms, which refers back to the fact forward momentum would be hard to acquire in that situation.  The trial and error complaints are unfounded as well, I can count the number of trial and error instances on one hand, and 2 or three of those are on Smokey Peaks in world 8, a silhouette level that obscures visual cues that would prevent death otherwise.  So yeah, it is bullshit when it happens, but its rare.  Only rocket level I didn't like was the back end of the bat level.  It was really fun until the big one starts spitting kameameahs, I got mad at that level.

I'm aware of both points and it still caused me problems.  I have mentioned it in the gaf thread, but the fact that you must do a downward waggle to roll when using the nunchuck+remote setup does cause problems for me because my right arm was damaged many years ago.  I literally cannot hold he remote so the face is pointing straight up; some mini-games in warioware I needed to play with my left hand because I physically could not with my right.  It's not an issue in games like Mario Galaxy because you can waggle too the windows, to the walls, skeet skeet skeet and all that.  It's not restricted to one axis.

Anyway, despite that, it still isn't good for the purposes of the game.  Unlike NSMB Wii where some sections required you to tilt platforms and move lights, there are approximately zero points in the entire game where the waggle action is more than a replacement for a button.  This is a system that has Gamecube controller ports, two official classic controllers, and buttons to spare when playing with the nunchuck.  There is no reason that they couldn't have provided the option.  The defense in the gaf thread boils down to "well I didn't have a problem with the motion controls" WOW! WHAT A GREAT STORY! some people have problems with it and it isn't integral to the the game.  Just put it as an option.

It's one of those things that seems amateurish in an otherwise great first effort (you can argue that Metroid Prime had ball platforming but I already don't care).

[EmCeeGrammar]

Having a physical disablity is a fair point, and that sucks duder. Couldn't you have played with the wiimote in your left hand though?

Anyway, I think mandatory waggle in most Nintendo games is them trying to make the gaming population accept motion controls come hell or high water.  I personally only have a problem when the waggle doesnt' match up with your actions, is too frequent (okami combos were almost impossible), or the sensitivity is too low (sonic colors wisp activation). I hated waggle in DKCR when I had to blow air on things. It never felt right and could have been mapped to the giant a button that goes unused on the horizontal wiimote scheme.

[Positive Touch]

Maybe it's just me here, but I really like having other things to do in my RPGs. You know, exploring the furthest corners of the world, wandering through various cities, finding some sidequests to do for cool weapons, talking to NPCs, and just taking a break from the main storyline from time to time.

You don't have to explain. All this stuff are very normal desires. That's part of why FF13 is so very odd and doesn't feel right. There are lots of ways to evolve the genre. But does anybody really think FF13 is the future of rpg's. Especially if they ever have any hope of expanding their market share in the west.

It's a very odd sidestep of a game. I think in 5 or 6 years we will look back upon it and think wtf were they doing.

As I keep repeating there is very much room for a mainstream story driven RPG that isn't all nichey like a lot of JRPG's feel for westerners. But they are not on the right track to making that game right now.

we dont even need hindsight to see what's wrong.  it's essentially the same problem with gta4 - the dev team saw all the optional gameplay stuff as extraneous, so instead of working to improve it and make it work within the gameworld they wanted to created, they cut it.  this leaves us with a one-note game, which may not be SO bad, except the core game is weak and not nearly as good as what we've come to expect from the series.

no one is arguing that ffx or the ps2 gtas were perfect games, but they had a lot more ambition and were more fun because of it. 

[Himu]

The problem is that there's 40 hours of EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You run through tunnels, you fight. That's it. There isn't anything else in the entire game that deviates from that, except for the unplayable cutscenes.

Pacing like that wouldn't be a problem for a 5-6 hour action game, because it makes the pace exciting and fun! And it doesn't last long enough to get tedious.

but i don't find it tedious at all,i like to see the character learn new skill,i love seeing the new place the game throw at me and heck in a surprising twist i don't even mind the plot and the character,that's what playing a Jrpg should be about,not walking aimless around a generic tundra/desert map or talking with NPC that tell you "the evil empire sure is evil" or trying to fuck everything that has boobs including a robot

RPGs are great because they give you a foreign world to soak in and absorb.

the people in FF10 are religious and have a sense of culture. They pray at landmarks before leaving to allow for safe travel. They pray at the temples to show piety and faith. They enjoy a water-based sport, travel on giant elephant things that travel across giant bodies of water. They are a people united through the one fear of Sin. It's a game where the world has a sense of culture and cohesion. In fact, most rpgs do. That's half the fun of playing an rpg aside from those delicious numbers: journeying through a foreign land and seeing what life is like in a made up world.

You may not play rpgs for this, and that's understandable from your comments, but you would be in a minority.

Even then, the issue isn't the fact that it's just one long dungeon crawl, it's that it's a boring dungeon crawl. The dungeons have no puzzle elements, or any sense of uniqueness to them. They're just corridors. If all you're doing in an rpg is battle battle battle battle and explore dungeons, it's a dungeon crawler. Thus, FF13 is a dungeon crawler. And a shitty one.

Rpgs are among the longest single player heavy games. They are games that tend to range between 40-100 hours. Those towns full of "meaningless" npc's are what makes an rpg great and makes rpgs bearable because once again, rpgs have intense length times compared to other genres. Thus, rpgs need towns and cities.

Even then, if FF13 really really wanted to pull off what it wanted to successful it should have followed the lead of much, much better games that have done it before: Breath of Fire 5 and Vagrant Story. Both two games are linear as fuck, only feature battle, battle, battle, battle and dungeon exploration and yet they contain enough variety and great pacing that this is never an issue.

Enjoy doing the same thing did in hour one in hour fourty, when you realize,"this is why FF13 sucks balls."

[Himu]

And personally, as someone who doesn't like cutscenes in my rpgs, one thing I DO like is world-building: building a cohesive world that is tied with a sense of identity and culture. I find games do that FAR better than they do at actual plot and writing, and in many cases for me, it IS the story.

In FF13, you're shown things, but you can never explore or see them. It's like you visit a museum and you can't touch anything. Who wants that in a game?

[Positive Touch]

i think its also very important to emphasize that ff13 doesnt suck just because all you do is fight, but because the battle system is shallow as fuck and gets old WAYYYYY before the game ends

[Himu]

It really does. FF10 may have had a rock papers scissors battle system, but at least it had those amazing boss fights.

[Great Rumbler]

i think its also very important to emphasize that ff13 doesnt suck just because all you do is fight, but because the battle system is shallow as fuck and gets old WAYYYYY before the game ends

I was getting bored with the combat during the first HOUR. 

[Himu]

rav/rav/com

autobattle
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[Positive Touch]

the only thing better than a braindead easy 30hr rpg is a braindead easy 30hr rpg that plays itself


i could troll ff13 all day!  but my main point is that it sucks and so does demi.  off to play some mass effect 2 and super meat boy

[demi]

the only thing better than a braindead easy 30hr rpg is a braindead easy 30hr rpg that plays itself

Nailed it... FF12 is so bad

[Himu]

When I beat FF13 I sold it the next day for Strange Journey.
 
Playing SMT: Strange Journey after directly beating FF13 blew my fucking mind.

"Holy shit, an rpg?!!?"

the only thing better than a braindead easy 30hr rpg is a braindead easy 30hr rpg that plays itself

Nailed it... FF12 is so bad

FF12 marks

[Great Rumbler]

As much as people bag on FF12's combat for "playing itself", I'd take that over FFXIII's "spam autobattle" any day.

[Himu]

FF13 plays itself far more than FF12. FF12 you can customize every part of your characters ai behavior. In FF13, you have to rely on pre-made behaviors you have no control of. Characters use random spells and abilities and you have no say. A Tales game has better ai customization.

[demi]

Because one game does it different its better, ok...

[Positive Touch]

ff12 also has 10 million challenging boss fights that require you to come up with different strategies.  thats why the game is great.  ff13 might have some, but they stick them all at the end when youre too bored to care.

[Bebpo]

Don't you guys ever get tired of arguing about FF13?

It's not even worth the time to continually discuss it.

[demi]

Don't you guys ever get tired of arguing about FF13?

It's not even worth the time to continually discuss it.

lol. You'd think Himu would learn but he's just sooooooo mad

[iconoclast]

Just 1cc'd Death Smiles II arcade mode with Lei. 495m high score, ranked 29th

Traps

I've warmed up to the game after spending more time with it, so I figure I'll do a quick review. The bullet patterns and stage design are, for the most part, as good as the first Death Smiles. Which means it's excellent. Satan Claws is a fantastic end boss, since he's a tough motherfucker with some awesome bullet patterns. Satan Claws > Tyrannosatan. Aside from the graphics, the scoring system is the biggest change to the game. Sometimes I love the new system, sometimes I hate it; but after spending a few days getting used to the changes, overall I think it's for the better. With the new system, when you hold laser, the bullets from your option leech blue rings from enemies, which builds your multiplier. When you tap shot while point-blanking an enemy, your character leeches red rings, which builds your counter. Once you power up, the idea is to use your lock-shot to kill most of the enemies. Doing that spawns yellow suicide bullets that you kite around until they're just about to hit you, then once you let go of the lock-shot, it turns the suicide bullet into tons of purple rings, giving you tons of points. My favorite thing about this is how easy it is to do a quick counter recharge. You can chain power ups over and over and over, which makes the scoring very fast-paced and fun.

Aesthetically, the game fails pretty hard. First of all, the art doesn't hold a candle to the original game. I have no idea who the artist was for DS2, but he's not half as good as Joker Jun. Secondly, the graphics are simply awful in arcade mode. If you told me this was a Dreamcast game, I'd probably believe you. But at least the music is pretty good.

So to summarize, Death Smiles II is pretty awesome.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

Bought a shitload of stuff off of Steam over the past couple of weeks but I've mainly been playing Deadly Premonition this weekend.  I think I'd actually enjoy the game a hell of a lot more if it weren't for the driving and the horrendous map.  It's bad enough that the map only shows you a postage stamp size view but what makes it even more disorientating is that it fucking rotates around depending on which direction your facing.  Fucking black Jesus, give me a break here.  I thought that getting the police radio would help matters but it only brings me back to place I just visited.  Fuck you Swerty.

[pilonv1]

Risen has one of THE WORST boss fights I've ever played. Just brutally bad.

[Himu]

Don't you guys ever get tired of arguing about FF13?

It's not even worth the time to continually discuss it.

It's just every time someone who wants to defend FF13's decisions it's always,"well it's better than talking to npcs and exploring" and it always makes me wonder why the hell they would play RPGs as this is the bread and butter of the genre. If you want battles you could play an action game with far more engaging battles seeing as how the rpg as we know is arguably amongst the easiest genres. It's almost like complaining that platformers tend to include traditional things like ice level, fire level, whatever as if it had anything to do with game quality.

Either way, it's interesting how people play one genre for completely different reason apparently.

[Bebpo]

Look, FF13 isn't the best rpg out there and it certainly isn't the worst.  You can do a lot worse than liking FF13.  If someone does, then who cares, they are allowed to.

fuck, why I am still talking about this game

[Bebpo]

I think Rockstar games need a "save anywhere" feature since they're pretty much Bethesda games at this point.  I tried playing Red Dead again and did a couple of missions.  Then after a mission was done I wandered around and explored and shot and skinned some animals and then I rode back into town and some bandits were firing guns while riding horses so I shot a guy on a horse I thought was with the gang but it turns out he was just some guy riding by and I got -50 honor and a bounty on my head and so I turned it off and lost all the animals I killed and skinned and money I looted off the guys from the previous mission

Also I wish this game had a hardcore mode where you have to eat every 12 hours and sleep every 20 hours like New Vegas.  It's such a cool unique environment to roleplay, but although there are some times when I'm really feeling it, there are times where it just feels like a GTA game with mission start points at certain areas on the map and nothing really to do in between.  Then again I'm only maybe 2 hours in, so I haven't even scratched the surface.  Although man, the cover shooting feels really shit.  Why can't Rockstar make combat as good as 50 Cent?

[Stoney Mason]

I didn't have a problem with the combat in RDR. It was the first rockstar game I actually liked in that regard and unlike some other open world games that people seem to like ala Crackdown, Just Cause , Saints Row, I found the combat to be more fun than those titles.


Yes the combat isn't as good as a fully dedicated combat only third person shooter but I thought it was credible enough to work and be enjoyable. 

[demi]

Repost from Borys thread

Finished Uncharted 2. Final Boss was horribly bad. Dealing iwth the camera AND jumping? Oh my word.

Finished it on Hard since Crushing was locked. Might as well have been easy.

Hardly any tombing, basically a shootan game.

Good environments, nice variety of set pieces. I would give it a solid 8.

[Great Rumbler]

Since this is now the FF13 thread my thoughts on the game:

Played FINAL FANTASY XIII for about 1 hour skipping every fucking cutscene there is (don't want to spoil them in shitty SD res).

Pros:
- game is fast. Damn fast. Even though it has overworld --> battle transitions I think encounters play out faster than in FF12 which I thought could not be possible.
- game looks very, very nice. First impressions are pretty bad but the further you go, the better it looks. Beta Behemoth <3
- battle music is awesome! Very catchy tune, I hope I don't get sick of it soon
- the ranking system is pretty ingenious. Instead of finishing every battle with as little damage to my party as possible I know want to finish *every* fight as fast as possible to score the highest rank. Pretty clever, kind of weird it wasn't in the series before. Let's see them rank Tiamat type of encounter from FF12 however
- UI is sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. Loving it!

Cons:
- for the first hour, skipping all cutscenes, the environments look all the same. Where's the variety? How long can one dungeon go on?
- people making fun of how much linear it is are 100% right. There's literally nowhere to go but forward. Straight line dungeons. How the mighty (FF12) have fallen...
- can't say a damn thing about characters yet (skipped every cutscene) but the black guy's battle poses annoy me greatly. He's some ballet dude or what?
- buying shit at savepoints. WTS Square? Where are HD Towns?!?

Black dude is the only character worth watching the cutscenes for.

black dude

[pilonv1]

You mean Chocobro

[Stoney Mason]

Since this is now the FF13 thread my thoughts on the game:

Played FINAL FANTASY XIII for about 1 hour skipping every fucking cutscene there is (don't want to spoil them in shitty SD res).

Pros:
- game is fast. Damn fast. Even though it has overworld --> battle transitions I think encounters play out faster than in FF12 which I thought could not be possible.
- game looks very, very nice. First impressions are pretty bad but the further you go, the better it looks. Beta Behemoth <3
- battle music is awesome! Very catchy tune, I hope I don't get sick of it soon
- the ranking system is pretty ingenious. Instead of finishing every battle with as little damage to my party as possible I know want to finish *every* fight as fast as possible to score the highest rank. Pretty clever, kind of weird it wasn't in the series before. Let's see them rank Tiamat type of encounter from FF12 however
- UI is sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. Loving it!

Cons:
- for the first hour, skipping all cutscenes, the environments look all the same. Where's the variety? How long can one dungeon go on?
- people making fun of how much linear it is are 100% right. There's literally nowhere to go but forward. Straight line dungeons. How the mighty (FF12) have fallen...
- can't say a damn thing about characters yet (skipped every cutscene) but the black guy's battle poses annoy me greatly. He's some ballet dude or what?
- buying shit at savepoints. WTS Square? Where are HD Towns?!?

Black dude is the only character worth watching the cutscenes for.

black dude

Truly. He was the only character that wasn't like nails on a chalkboard for me.

[brawndolicious]

Just finished second playthrough of Just Cause 2 on hardcore.  Got all the achievements now but disappointed I didn't play it on this difficulty the first time, because it felt like there was no difference at all in how challenging it was compared to normal.

[Herr Mafflard]

Bepbo if i recall correctly RDR saves everytime you make camp, so it pretty much is a save anywhere mechanic.

[magus]

Don't you guys ever get tired of arguing about FF13?

It's not even worth the time to continually discuss it.

but i like arguing with people :'(

rav/rav/com

autobattle
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that's true but i don't see how it differs from FF12 where you don't even need to do that or once again persona where you win as soon as you hit everyone with the appropriate spell

ff12 also has 10 million challenging boss fights that require you to come up with different strategies.

1. cast bubble on the tank
2. tank draws attention
3. heal tank when tank hp < 50

there you don't even need to do it yourself since the gambit do it for you,but as i said i like FF13 system because it keeps you on your toes "OH SHIT MY MEMBER ARE DYING! HEALER!" "OK I'M FULLY HEALED! GO CHAIN TEAM!" "THE DEBUFF IS GONE? DEBUFF GO!" "QUICK THE CHAIN BAR IS ALMOST DRAINED,ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK" "THE ENEMY IS PULLING OFF AN UBER ATTACK? TANK TANK TANK!"

It's just every time someone who wants to defend FF13's decisions it's always,"well it's better than talking to npcs and exploring" and it always makes me wonder why the hell they would play RPGs as this is the bread and butter of the genre. If you want battles you could play an action game with far more engaging battles

i'm not saying that "it's better than talking to npc and exploring" just that i never tought FF7 was amazing because there was a world map (that ultimately still force you to just get to the next dungeon/town) and NPC that told me useless stuff,so yea if FF13 get the fundamentals right who cares if it's linear or has no town? i finished chapter 7 and there was a boss battle against a huge battleship and it was the most awesomest thing ever,i couldn't care about the rest less

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

SO FUCKING PRETTY

[Himu]

Repost from Borys thread

Finished Uncharted 2. Final Boss was horribly bad. Dealing iwth the camera AND jumping? Oh my word.

Finished it on Hard since Crushing was locked. Might as well have been easy.

Hardly any tombing, basically a shootan game.

Good environments, nice variety of set pieces. I would give it a solid 8.

Good luck on final boss on crushing. It is shit sandwich.

[demi]

I'm not bothering with Crushing. Already put it back in the mail. Sorry Naughty Dog is dumbasses and force me to play it twice.

[Bebpo]

Don't 90% of games this gen require you to play a game multiple times if you want 1000/1000 or platinum trophy? 

It's why I don't bother for full trophies or 1000s. 

[chronovore]

Bepbo if i recall correctly RDR saves everytime you make camp, so it pretty much is a save anywhere mechanic.

This is true. You can save at safehouses, but you can make camp anywhere away from a town, which will then allow you to travel to a waypoint or Save, advancing the game 6 hours.