What are you playing?

[The Sceneman]

Blue Dragon was such a funny game to 1000. I played through Bully and Beyond Good and Evil on PS2 while leaving the 360 on to auto-grind character classes 

[cool breeze]

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands

This game is so lazy! I'm enjoying it and it feels like a mix between the Sands of Time games and the 2008 game.  A lot of decent pattern based platforming, though, it is lacking in any real puzzles.  It is ridiculously easy compared to the SoT games but not to the point where I felt bored like in the 2008 one.  Combat is just hack and slash fluff so it is usually over quickly.  But yeah, this game is super lazy.  The story and way the Prince acts is so weird.  All his quips make him seem lonely in this game, and despite making references to sands of time, it seems like he didn't care about that time.  His attitude to getting a time reversing power is just "sweet bro I almost died there"; considering the three games on the PS2 made such a big deal about the dagger of time, it is hilarious how he is so casual about getting more time powers from the woman with weird lips.  It doesn't really try to do anything except take you from room to room to do puzzles and platforming.  That's totally fine because that stuff is fun.  Also, the controls are kinda messy and sluggish. 

[iconoclast]

Well I just beat the story in Zeno Clash... that was quick. Great game though, really enjoyed. Might even wind up being one of my favorite XBLA games once I play through the challenge mode.

creativity in gaming, why are you so rare

[Bebpo]

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands

Sounds kind of bad.  Are you playing on PC?

I was going to pick that up & splinter cell conviction when they do the Ubidrop to $5 on steam one of these sales.

Well I just beat the story in Zeno Clash... that was quick. Great game though, really enjoyed. Might even wind up being one of my favorite XBLA games once I play through the challenge mode.

creativity in gaming, why are you so rare

It's not that rare.  Just it's not in the multi-million dollar productions anymore.  Gotta play budget games for creativity.

[etiolate]

ugh

I was thinking Zeno Clash was gonna surprise me because of the artstyle, but the game is so repeatitive and the world and action and story feel separated. The game needed less rails and better combat. I just gave up pretty early on, despite wanting to see the world.

[magus]

decided to replay super metroid after the disappointmenthon of metroid other m
i didn't know you could access the wrecked ship without the grapple beam and defeat that phantom thing before crocomire

[cool breeze]

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands

Sounds kind of bad.  Are you playing on PC?

I was going to pick that up & splinter cell conviction when they do the Ubidrop to $5 on steam one of these sales.

yeah, I bought it and Splinter Cell when the site was on the fritz.  It isn't bad, it isn't great.  If you liked the old PS2 PoP games and want more, this is almost that.  There is just more pattern based platforming that feels QTE-ish from the 2008 game.  And like I mentioned before, it is really easy.  The window you have to react is so huge that sometimes it is comical to see the Prince stroll through traps like it's nothing.

It is a dull looking game but at least it runs really smooth on PC.

[fistfulofmetal]

sitting here with Steam open I remembered I actually bought the GTA4 episodes. Soooo I spent 4 hours downloading all 16 gigs (  )


and started playing Lost and Damned. Def enjoying it. The characters are more interesting than GTA4 vanilla and the main character isn't annoying.

[OptimoPeach]

decided to replay super metroid after the disappointmenthon of metroid other m
i didn't know you could access the wrecked ship without the grapple beam and defeat that phantom thing before crocomire

You can also skip the plant boss at the start. Actually, you don't even need to kill Crocomire to beat the game either lol

[Great Rumbler]

Played some Dark Cloud 2 today. My God, this game is boring.

[demi]

Can I have it?

[Great Rumbler]

It's not mine, I borrowed it.

[Third]

Played some Dark Cloud 2 today. My God, this game is boring.

What? It's better than any jrpg released this gen.
Well, maybe not better than Lost Odyssey and Vesperia. But better than anything else.

[magus]

i like dark cloud 2 but i could see someone getting bored with the actual combat/dungeon portion of the game since it's a little too simplistic

town creating is a blast tough! inventing new item is a cool feature but a somewhat frustating one

[Great Rumbler]

town creating is a blast tough! inventing new item is a cool feature but a somewhat frustating one

That's what I'm trying to get to. But right now it's "Make your way through these generic sewers for a couple hours while you fight hordes of generic enemies by using generic combat!" and it's really killing me.

[magus]

town creating is a blast tough! inventing new item is a cool feature but a somewhat frustating one

That's what I'm trying to get to. But right now it's "Make your way through these generic sewers for a couple hours while you fight hordes of generic enemies by using generic combat!" and it's really killing me.

if you talk with the scrappy kids he'll tell you about scoops,which basicaly involve snapping a photo of  enemies during some of their animation,some scoops involve boss and so they are missable so be carefull

[ToxicAdam]

Dark Cloud peters out about 2/3 of the way through. The amount levels you needed to go through per town should have been shortened. Golfing should have been handled better and the item creation gimmick should have been more intuitive, instead of just slapping random shit together.

[iconoclast]

Playing Fallout 3 now. I'm actually starting to like it. I guess it's just one of those games that takes a while to click. Got to level 8, and two seconds after starting Operation Anchorage the game locks up. Guess I needed a reminder that I was in fact playing a Bethesda game.

I 200'd Zeno Clash as well. Pretty great game. I hated the pit stages in the challenge mode, but thankfully they only take like 15 minutes combined so that wasn't too bad. Will keep my eye on Rock of Ages now even though it doesn't look very interesting.

[tiesto]

I loved Dark Cloud 2 but I agree that the dungeon portions drag on for WAAAAY too long. I want a Dark Cloud 3 with more town-building and less dungeons. More RPGs need town-building.

[OptimoPeach]

Playing Fallout 3 now. I'm actually starting to like it. I guess it's just one of those games that takes a while to click. Got to level 8, and two seconds after starting Operation Anchorage the game locks up. Guess I needed a reminder that I was in fact playing a Bethesda game.

The only good thing about Anchorage is the loot at the end anyway, so the game was probably just doing you a favor

[Himu]

Dark Cloud 1 > Dark Cloud 2

[magus]

no
just....
no!

[Mr. Gundam]

ACE R -- On the second to last level with Crossbone Gundam. The game is pretty broken and not worth playing if you're not gay for mecha like I am. Some of the boss fights are ridiculously difficult.

[Great Rumbler]

Dark Cloud 1 > Dark Cloud 2

[Himu]

Dark Cloud 1 had a more endearing cast, more interesting town building, a better balance between dungeon crawling and town building, and it had multiple characters each with their own uses to solve puzzles, the dungeons were also much better. Dark Cloud 1 gets into the game like that. Dark Cloud 2 troddles and fuddles and mumbles on end when all I want to do is build a fucking town.

Dark Cloud 1 is my favorite Level 5 game and I would kill for a psn version.

[magus]

i've played several settlers of catan match but for godness sake,i can't seems to win no matter what

[iconoclast]

Black Label Original in Mushi Futari can fuck right off. Once your rank gets to 9999 the bullets are SO FUCKING FAST OMG. I'm trying to 1CC it with Palm, but he is terrible compared to Reco in Black Label. In 1.5, Palm's main advantage is his huge manly laser that tears through bosses, but his C shot is narrow so it makes getting through the stages harder. In BL, Reco's still got the godly C shot that covers the entire stage AND her laser destroys bosses just as fast as Palm's. God damn it.

On the other hand, Arrange mode is good for relieving frustration. All dem gems are so easy to get.

[Eric P]

HoMM3. 

[Third]

Played a bit of And Yet It Moves. It's ok, but gets boring pretty fast.

And wow, that's the third Wii game I've played in one month. I think that's a personal record.

[magus]

HoMM3. 

i finished the original just a while ago,i was playing the expansion but i'm not sure i want to continue,i got to this maps where i'm doing my stuff when suddenly *BAM* the cpu attack and he has like twice my army,it's so frustating when that happens,you got your ass kicked and you don't even know how it happened

the worst thing of all is that the cpu can just waltz in my territory but i have to go trough his checkpost if i want to attack him it's so unfair

[EmCeeGrammar]

decided to replay super metroid after the disappointmenthon of metroid other m
i didn't know you could access the wrecked ship without the grapple beam and defeat that phantom thing before crocomire

See, I knew HOW to do this, but its like I always needed an extra pixel to store my shinespark to go over that water. And yet I see people on speedruns do it no sweat.
 :'(

[OptimoPeach]

You only need to be holding B on the frame when Samus' foot closest to the player hits the ground in order to charge your shinespark, and it takes four of those in a row to activate.

[youtube=560,345]gYQxXpTDgSU[/youtube]

This one was obviously tool assisted to maximize efficiency, but you get the idea

[EmCeeGrammar]

SON OF A BITCH
So the pro speed runners are like tapping the button rhythmically? This game is so exploitable yet oh so awesome because of i.

[OptimoPeach]

Yeah. The timing is actually pretty easy once you hit it a few times.

And I know! Makes me want to play it again, but I wasted enough time on it earlier this year

[Trent Dole]

You bastardheads are making me want to bust out Super Metroid and Prime 1 with all this talk. 

[iconoclast]

Doing the sister battle in Portrait of Ruin. My god what a shitty game.

The fight with Death was good, and the boss in the sand temple was pretty good, but everything else has been terrrrrrrrible.

[chronovore]

Wanted to catch up on RDR multiplayer, but XBL was acting up really strangely. I can connect to the internet but not Live. Absolutely no idea what's changed; my settings are the same as ever, but this is the 2nd time this week it's been flaky for me.

Anyone else?

[Bebpo]

Spending the night in with my X360.

Picked up Radiangames Inferno off XNA for $1 because Indiegames blog said it's the next big thing.  Was just ok.  The core shooting mechanics are solid and the visuals/music do the job, but it gets kind of dull imo.  It takes until halfway through the game before you fight a boss and the boss is fun!  But it needed one like every 5 levels to add more variety.  I dunno, for $1 I got 30-60 mins out of it so I really can't complain that I didn't get my money's worth.  But it just feels like if it had a little smarter design to keep down the repetition it'd be a quality game.

Bought Limbo at $15 because after playing all the recent XBLA demos, I reaaaally liked it.  Absolutely love it so far.  I hear it's short, but hopefully it's at least as long as Portal or Braid (2-3 hours).  That's about all I expect for $15 if the quality of those hours are AAA.  Game is so atmospheric and the puzzles and flow is quite nice so far.  Going to play a ton more of this tonight.

Then gonna play the heck out of DR2 Case Zero since I haven't gotten a chance to play past the first 2 scenes.  Looking foward to killing zombiessss

Then gonna try out the Vanquish demo and see if it's hot or not.

Should be a fun night.

[Great Rumbler]

Rune Factory: Frontier

I've been wanting to play this since it came out, but not for $50. Saw it today for $20 and decided to get it. The game is basically like Harvest Moon with elements of fantasy added in, more diverse jobs [aside from just farming], and some dungeon crawling. Haven't really had much time to get into it just yet, but I really like the look of it so far. The graphics aren't really great or anything, but it does look pretty good for a Wii game and has a nice art style that certainly helps.

[Bebpo]

Ended up just marathoning Limbo all night and finished it.  Will have to save Case Zero and Vanquish for another day.

Limbo was good although some of the spots were annoying and when the last 20% or so became GRAVITY PUZZLES I was just like wtffff, no one told me this game has gravity puzzles!  I hate gravity puzzles.  I swear I blew through the first 75% in 2 hours and then the last 25% took me an additional 2 hours.  Still, the art/music was really nice and lots of interesting set pieces.  I think I preferred the first half of the game where it's organic and there are lost boys and creatures and other things vs. mechanical switches and tons and every manner of crate puzzle imagineable.  Still some of the mechanical setpieces were great like the water flooding facility.  Definitely liked it and it was worth $15.  Reminded me of ICO if ICO was filled with nonstop trial & error gameplay instead of awesome exploration puzzle solving gameplay

[chronovore]

Wanted to catch up on RDR multiplayer, but XBL was acting up really strangely. I can connect to the internet but not Live. Absolutely no idea what's changed; my settings are the same as ever, but this is the 2nd time this week it's been flaky for me.

Anyone else?

I had this issue when Dead Rising: Case Zero hit the network. I think were going to be hit with some big issues like in 2007.

Huh, that would explain the loss of XBL connectivity I've been having, but I'd been thinking differently about the Red Dead Redemption games dropping me for connectivity in three-out-of-four sessions I join. In retrospect that seems kind of ignorant of me. If XBL itself is having problems, it's going to have a cascade effect across other games using its network because of all the backend stuff.

[magus]

decided to replay super metroid after the disappointmenthon of metroid other m
i didn't know you could access the wrecked ship without the grapple beam and defeat that phantom thing before crocomire

See, I knew HOW to do this, but its like I always needed an extra pixel to store my shinespark to go over that water. And yet I see people on speedruns do it no sweat.
 :'(

the funny thing is that i wasn't trying to sequence break,the wrecked ship can also be accessed by meridia which is what i did

[demi]

If anyone wants to play Gears 2 Horde while this XP event is going on (I dont have All Fronts so cant KOTH boost), feel free to msg me... I should be on most of the day and weekend. I doubt I will hit 100 but w/e.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Gamefly is sending me Nier so I can't wait to play that.

I'm just not into Fallout 3.  After getting bored of the game, I just started beating on everything but Fallout 3 finds a way to make that as boring as possible.  Reminds me a lot of Morrowind, which I hated.

[Beezy]

Gamefly is sending me Nier so I can't wait to play that.

Go for all the endings if you end up liking it. It only takes about 35 hours unless you try to get all the achievements.

[bork]

Wanted to catch up on RDR multiplayer, but XBL was acting up really strangely. I can connect to the internet but not Live. Absolutely no idea what's changed; my settings are the same as ever, but this is the 2nd time this week it's been flaky for me.

Anyone else?

I had this issue when Dead Rising: Case Zero hit the network. I think were going to be hit with some big issues like in 2007.

Huh, that would explain the loss of XBL connectivity I've been having, but I'd been thinking differently about the Red Dead Redemption games dropping me for connectivity in three-out-of-four sessions I join. In retrospect that seems kind of ignorant of me. If XBL itself is having problems, it's going to have a cascade effect across other games using its network because of all the backend stuff.

I had the same thing happen a few nights back, too.  My PC was online and I could connect with my PS3, but the 360 wouldn't sign online.  It was fine the next day.

[Joe Molotov]

Wanted to catch up on RDR multiplayer, but XBL was acting up really strangely. I can connect to the internet but not Live. Absolutely no idea what's changed; my settings are the same as ever, but this is the 2nd time this week it's been flaky for me.

Anyone else?

I had this issue when Dead Rising: Case Zero hit the network. I think were going to be hit with some big issues like in 2007.

Huh, that would explain the loss of XBL connectivity I've been having, but I'd been thinking differently about the Red Dead Redemption games dropping me for connectivity in three-out-of-four sessions I join. In retrospect that seems kind of ignorant of me. If XBL itself is having problems, it's going to have a cascade effect across other games using its network because of all the backend stuff.

I had the same thing happen a few nights back, too.  My PC was online and I could connect with my PS3, but the 360 wouldn't sign online.  It was fine the next day.

60 US Dollars 

[demi]

Uh, guys... XBL had a little hiccup a couple days ago. Aug 31 I believe... I couldnt sign on to get Case Zero. It ironed itself out later that day.

http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/xbox/xboxstatus.aspx

[chronovore]

Thanks, Demi. I checked that first thing; unfortunately MS is not all that forthcoming on that site; everything looks hunky dory right now, but when performing the Network Test on the box, there is sometimes extra info on what particular problems they're currently experiencing.

I'm pretty sure it's them. I've not messed with my network other than to reset the router (just in case), and my other wifi using items are all operating at normal speeds. The xbox has been slow to do anything whenever it's connected to the internet, but when it fails to sign in to XBL, the speed is normal.

It is likely them prepping stuff for a fall update, possibly doing a rolling upgrade through their own servers, and the downtime is having a ripple effect on everyone's access of the network.

[Robo]

What the fuck is with the end credits of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Must be over ten minutes long and it's unskippable!

[The Sceneman]

Ended up just marathoning Limbo all night and finished it.  Will have to save Case Zero and Vanquish for another day.

Limbo was good although some of the spots were annoying and when the last 20% or so became GRAVITY PUZZLES I was just like wtffff, no one told me this game has gravity puzzles!  I hate gravity puzzles.  I swear I blew through the first 75% in 2 hours and then the last 25% took me an additional 2 hours.  Still, the art/music was really nice and lots of interesting set pieces.  I think I preferred the first half of the game where it's organic and there are lost boys and creatures and other things vs. mechanical switches and tons and every manner of crate puzzle imagineable.  Still some of the mechanical setpieces were great like the water flooding facility.  Definitely liked it and it was worth $15.  Reminded me of ICO if ICO was filled with nonstop trial & error gameplay instead of awesome exploration puzzle solving gameplay

grow a set of balls you dick, the gravity shit was the best part. The last 15 minutes of Limbo are incredible with the sound turned up loud.

[Bebpo]

No, it was the worst part.  I didn't buy a game called LIMBO to play a game like Portal.  I bought Limbo so I can wander around strange worlds and fight creepy monsters and little kids.

[iconoclast]

Just died with 5 pixels of health left on Larsa in Mushi Futari. I missed the extra 1up on stage 5 as well...

On a side note, Ultra Arrange is no joke. You have to fight all three forms of Larsa.

edit: Woo, finally 1CC'd Black Label Original with Palm. Now I just need to 1CC 1.5 Original with Reco and I'm switching over to Maniac mode permanently.

[EmCeeGrammar]

Team Fortress 2 is a huge disappointment.    The only think I like doing at this point is medic because its pretty straightforward.  I just really despise how they do stuff like put intel at the end of a along hallway so as if it wasnt hard enough to get into the damn place its doubly so getting out. And then like you have some engineer babysitting his turrets and their pyros sweeping the peripheral hallways and theres no strategy I can concoct to make progress.  When it comes to other game modes it seems like the map automatically favors offense or defense depending on the objective. Games often feel like they go on forever. And the lack of matchmaking ain't too kind to noobs like me in the first place.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also despise having to use wasd to move my guy around. This is just one those things I'm never going to adjust to at this point, I grew up with console games and keyboard layouts are not conducive to how I  comfortably play games

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

You just suck. Sorry.

[EmCeeGrammar]

You just suck. Sorry.

I think that's the main problem. It just seems like its too entrenched with people that know what they are doing and its too much for me. That, and keyboard controls suck.

[Great Rumbler]

You just suck. Sorry.

That, and keyboard controls suck.

[Robo]

Sounds to me like this is a simple case of you just not getting it.  The team part isn't meant to be taken loosely, unlike a lot of other "team"-based shooters.  The game is specifically balanced to make solo efforts entirely ineffective against a decent team.

[chronovore]

This morning XBL decided to play nice-nice and Scenester and I played through some more co-op stuff in Red Dead Redemption. It was mucho cool, for once I got to feel more competent than Scenester and his full complement of Golden Guns, because he thought the main goal is to catch as many bullets in his chest as possible.

Tonight XBL is shitting the bed again. The same time of day, it's either scheduled maintenance or one of my neighbors has an industrial microwave he's using to dispose of human remains, and the thing is interfering with my wifi. I don't think I'll ask around.

Also playing Carcassonne, as mentioned. If any of you see me online and care to play a round or two, send an invite.

[archie4208]

Just imagine how much fun you would be having if you could use a Wii Remote in TF2.