What are you playing?

[Trent Dole]

Gta turned boring during the ps2 days folks. Just coasting on nostalgia and name recognition at this point.

[Bebpo]

I suddenly got really into Infamous 2 yesterday.  I think I needed a sandbox exploration game.  Finished up the first city section, starting on the 2nd, small one.  3rd area looks pretty massive when I get there.  Game is fun though I feel you never really get to know these locations they spent so much time texturing uniquely.  You're always just running past them on the rooftops staring at your mini-map unless you're in a mission.  Not sure how they could have made the areas more personal like AC or GTA though without making it less fun.

The side missions are great.  They're short and fun and have an ok variety.  I like them better than some of the main missions, though the main missions seem to be getting better now.  The mission that started off "go check for Kou in 3 sheds and then transitioned into hang out with fire girl and light a public gathering in flames" was fairly rad.

The action is quite good too.  You have a lot of options with all the abilities and being able to move around and climb your environments and there's a solid amount of enemy types and it's cool that they attack each other too.

Unless it gets bad, I'll probably finish it out in the next week since I'm having a good time. 

[chronovore]

Niko didn't really bitch much about killing people like CJ did, though. Someone asks him to kill someone, Niko says "who". Both are flawed characters for this reason, but CJ takes the butt of it because he's so whiny about it. Niko's not whiny about it, he's just hypocritical.

Both suck, though.

It's all about Tommy Vercetti. That, or Claude. I'll take Claude over any GTA lead except Tommy. Dude has no lip, no fuss. You want me to assassinate my boss? Sure. Whatever. Who cares, he's a wimp. Claude As for pick up and play? I wouldn't want to play either. I'd rather just play III or VC.

As for which I prefer? If I were to pick a game to replay, it would be IV. I have tried to replay SA on so many occasions and have never gotten out of Los Santos. In comparison, I will do a speed run of III in one sitting.

I liked the dude in Chinatown Wars a lot too because he realized the dudes he worked for were idiots. He also didn't bitch about his jobs or scoffed at killing people because he was in the with the Triads as part of his family to begin with.

Sick of GTA and its whiny ass leads. Fuck.

The lead in Chinatown Wars is a snotty, spoiled brat, but he's a self-confessed snotty, spoiled brat. Chinatown Wars also features writing and missions (and side missions) more in line with GTA III-era games. It's the most fun you can have in GTA IV's Liberty City. ;-)

But Claude, that mute bastard, is the best lead. It's always given to the player to assign a reason why Claude does what he does. Which is good, because it's the player who dictates what Claude does.

[iconoclast]

Playing more Akai Katana now. Going to try for the western record in Arcade mode I suppose. Arcade isn't as fun as Zetsu though, and it kinda hurts my hand to play it for extended periods of time because you're always hitting A, C, A, C, A, C, A, C etc. to refill your ninja meter really quickly. Kinda annoying, but still fun since the game is amazing.

[magus]

Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

Just got Magnet Gloves, I think I'm near the end - I have almost 90% of overworld and 99% of underworld charted.

Capcom Zelda games >>> Nintendo Zelda games.

this man says the truth,are you going to play ages too?

[iconoclast]

Well I just got the Akai Katana western record: 248,106,230

That took about 3 hours. lol.

[Robo]

godlike 

[iconoclast]

Nah, it's just goodlike. There aren't many westerners putting any real effort into Akai Katana, and there are a bunch of Japanese players who can destroy 250m (world record = 500+). I think all my Zetsu playing just made it easier for me since that mode is harder and more complex.


Anyway, I'm about to finish Duke. I don't think I'll bother torturing myself by playing through it again on the highest difficulty, so I'll settle for whatever achievements I pick up over the last couple levels. I also think I would have liked the game more if I played it on PC, because it's one of the few instances this gen where the console version is complete crap. Oh well.

[Bebpo]

I'll play FoB but I'd wanted to give some time between the two so I'm not burnt out on it.

[demi]

I got ICO Collection from GameFly

[Van Cruncheon]

I got ICO Collection from GameFly

sucks 2 b u 

[chronovore]

Enslaved is probably going to get a few more days, so I can wrap up the Hard difficulty run and hopefully (but unlikely) get maxed out character stats.

Really not sure how to get an additional 90K tech orbs to finish my last category, since I appear to have about 90%+ all the orbs already. I don't want to grind that many mechs. Maybe I can grind some "schools"... 

[magus]

i miss action rpg that featured giant robot fight's in sci-fi labs that grow zombie

that said i'm having a love/hate relationship with this game,for every cool thing it throws at me,there is at least an equaly bad fetch quest or some shit like that

[OptimoPeach]

Some of the most fluid combat in any action RPG ever. I can't even articulate how much I love that lance thrust move. It has that same THIS FEELS SO RIGHT quality of SOTN's back dash

[The Sceneman]

I had a non gamer friend ask me today "Do you have a favorite game of all time?"

I sure as shit said: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[magus]

well i finished terranigma,the ending was a little abrupted,it was like "ehy here's the final boss,go defeat him!" next up is..... maybe goemon 2,kind of a shame it never leaved japan

[brob]

Never played Symphony of the Night. didn't even know it existed until internet message boards told me it was the bombest shit ever. I even played, and loved, Castlevania (1) back in the days. PSN/PSP the way to go?

[Groogrux]

I checked out Arkham City from work.   Annnnnnnnnndddddd I've been sucked in.....

[Trent Dole]

Never played Symphony of the Night. didn't even know it existed until internet message boards told me it was the bombest shit ever. I even played, and loved, Castlevania (1) back in the days. PSN/PSP the way to go?

People say SotN is the bombest shit ever because it is the bombest shit ever. I used to play through it every few months until DV HD hit and I kind of use that to get my fix every so often. Oughta play Symphony again, it's been a while.

[demi]

I checked out Arkham City from work.   Annnnnnnnnndddddd I've been sucked in.....

I thought you worked at a Hospital...

[Madrun Badrun]

Playing Metro 2033 on max settings.  It is fucking awesome.

[Bebpo]

Infamous 2 has ummm....very nice graphics.  The art direction + time of day lighting + great texture work on the surroundings + good character models = impressive.  This is the first game since GoW3 that's given that "painting" like look.

The part

spoiler (click to show/hide)

After the nuclear explosion with all the debris flying around and nuke sky colors looked crazy.

[close]

Music is also surprisingly good too.  Normally don't notice music much in sandbox games, but a lot of the mission songs are excellent.

[Groogrux]

I checked out Arkham City from work.   Annnnnnnnnndddddd I've been sucked in.....

I thought you worked at a Hospital...

Left the hospital back in September because I had to drive an hour to get there after I moved.  It was too expensive to work there.  Got a part-time gig with Gamestop until I start school in January.

[tiesto]

-Got all the endings in Catherine... want to try and beat the first Babel level, and finish up Rapunzel... then I'll call it a day with this one
-Finished my second playthrough of Ico, got the "beat in 4 hours" and "beat without dying" trophies. All that's left is "beat in 2 hours" but I don't want to bother
-Got the 200/200 in Daytona, easiest 200/200 since the Doritos game
-Playing more FF: 4 Heroes of Light on DS. It's a strange game, I can appreciate some of what they've done with the game, and the battle system/inventory limits haven't been bothering me like most people (still I don't like the auto-targeting). The storytelling/scenario writing is pretty bad but it started to improve now that

spoiler (click to show/hide)

my character got cursed and changed into a cat!

[close]

This weekend I'm gonna be finishing up Shadow of the Colossus (hopefully) and playing some Vanquish. Brother is gonna be home so there will probably be a lot of SSF4 too.

[demi]

ICO is such a bad, bad game. How can you stomach 2 plays? I can hardly play it for 20 minutes. I left it on last night while I was working on something, and when I finally sat down to play again, I lost the will to continue. It's such a CHORE.

[Bebpo]

I could stomach infinite playthroughs; it's just that good!

[Madrun Badrun]

ICO is such a bad, bad game. How can you stomach 2 plays? I can hardly play it for 20 minutes. I left it on last night while I was working on something, and when I finally sat down to play again, I lost the will to continue. It's such a CHORE.

Demi the speaker of truth.

[magus]

ICO is such a bad, bad game. How can you stomach 2 plays? I can hardly play it for 20 minutes. I left it on last night while I was working on something, and when I finally sat down to play again, I lost the will to continue. It's such a CHORE.

escort mission the game

[demi]

The stick swinging controls are shit, dragging the albino bitch is shit (you can literally "feel" the tugs as she refuses to run with you, it INFURIATES ME), the general AI of the bitch is dumbtarded, I hate sims-speak with a passion.

And I only just got the sword!

Why isn't there an ending where the boy with horns just up and leaves the bitch and lives happily ever after.

[brob]

2 player is the way to go for that game.

[Robo]

Sounds like yr trying to play it like a game.  ICO isn't a game, bro.

Really, though.

[demi]

I FUCKING HATE ICO

[Bebpo]

Art am cry

[iconoclast]

woo, got 312 million in Akai Katana (Arcade), which got me the achievement for scoring over 300m. That was HARD (only 13 people have it I think, according to the leaderboards).

[chronovore]

Broke 50,000 gamerscore last night. WOOOO!

I need a life.

[Bebpo]

Got all 305 blast shards in Infamous 2.  I think this is the first time I've ever gotten ALL the orbs/pigeons/flags/feathers/etc... even when always looking carefully for collectibles in sandbox games I end up missing like 5 and I'm not going to search the entire map using a guide just to get them.  Didn't even have to buy the blast shard finder power.  Kind of surprised!  But it's cool the power is in there as well.  AC needs a feather finder power

Guess I'm close to finishing up the game.  Looks like there's maybe 3-5 sidequests left and I just ran into

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some black guy from Infamous 1 who I don't remember because Infamous 1 was a long time ago!  Who is THE BEAST

[close]

Really great game.  Can you get 100% on the first run even though you're locked out of half the powers because of GOOD/EVIL karma?  I'm only at 73% which seems a bit low considering how little is left in the game.  If I actually replayed games, this seems like it'd be a good contender with all the EVIL powers including

spoiler (click to show/hide)

a set of fire attacks.  Although I looooove my ice powers.  The R2 Ice Jump is all I ever use to get around combined with fast hovering and grinds.  And the ice grenades rock.

[close]

But I don't have time to replay games, so oh well. 

Will probably finish it up tomorrow unless there's a hidden ton of stuff left.  I am missing 2 dead drops though, grrrrrr....which makes no sense since I've been all over the map getting all the blast shards.  I'm guessing they're story-based because of the plot discussion, so when I get further they'll appear out of nowhere and give me my completion satisfaction.

[Himu]

On the part where GTAIV starts to get bad. Ugh, every mission is a warehouse shootout at this point.

[Bebpo]

I thought the missions got bad when you had to chase a train with a car.

[Mr. Gundam]

I'm interested in inFamous 2, but hoping that it will be crazy cheap on Black Friday.

Just completed part one of Tales of Vesperia (PS3) last night. Still a great game, but the amount of cutscenes is ridiculous.

[demi]

I'm interested in inFamous 2, but hoping that it will be crazy cheap on Black Friday.

Just completed part one of Tales of Vesperia (PS3) last night. Still a great game, but the amount of cutscenes is ridiculous.

It was $20 on GameFly the other night...

[Beezy]

I thought the missions got bad when you had to chase a train with a car.

Ugh... that was terrible.

[Bebpo]

I'm interested in inFamous 2, but hoping that it will be crazy cheap on Black Friday.

Probably.

What's your feeling on sandbox games?  If you like them, I think you'd dig Infamous 2.  It's basically the best Marvel Comics Sandbox game out there.  Looks like a comic book and is filled with great superheroes vs. mutants & monsters & gang members action.  Story scenes are good too, in-game stuff looks nice and the motion comic scenes are awesome if you are a fan of motion comics like I am.

Game starts off a little slow though.  I think Infamous 1 was like that too.  I backlogged I2 after an hour or two not too excited about it until I started playing it again last Saturday.  Game picks up around 2-4 hours in.

[demi]

Infamous 2 is complete poop compared to 1... you accomplish absolutely nothing and the missions are a complete chore. Then the whole BEAST angle is completely ruined, which is what hyped me for 2 in the first place. Just a huge, huge disappointment.

[Bebpo]

What.  The game is better than the first in every way.

It's like Uncharted 1 -> Uncharted 2.  Just takes everything good about the first game and improves it.

Better graphics?  Check
More varied and more fun side missions? Check
Bigger city?  Check
More abilities?  Check
More interesting abilities? Check
Waaaay more enemy types? Check
Waaaay better combat action?  Check
Enemy factions that fight each other? Check
More interesting location? Check
Bigger split for GOOD/EVIL? Check

The story (haven't finished it yet) seems better than I1 just because I1 had very little story until the end.  You were some dude with powers and there were a couple of villains and you were chasing them and did a bunch of tasks along the way.  I2 has several subplots running at once and while Bertrand is a lame villain, everything else is great.  Looking forward to checking out the ending tonight.

Out of all the main missions/sub-missions there were maybe 2 or 3 that felt like a chore.  Much fewer than most sandbox games including the original.  The game has a lot of variety and being able to move so fast through the city helps a lot.

[Mr. Gundam]

I loved inFamous, so I'm sure I'll like inFamous 2. I just didn't feel like buying it all full price.

[Van Cruncheon]

I FUCKING HATE ICO

<respek knuckles>

[chronovore]

I thought the missions got bad when you had to chase a train with a car.

I liked that mission well enough. The "Hold B Button to watch target" mechanic was underused, much like the rest of the new mechanics in GTA IV. It was also sad they didn't do more with the TW@ "internet terminals."

I loved inFamous, so I'm sure I'll like inFamous 2. I just didn't feel like buying it all full price.

That's where I am, too. Just too many games in the backlog at launch, and I'd only just finished inFamous 1, so was kind of full-up on that gameplay. Great game though.

[Himu]

they're making sly 4

[demi]

No they're not. Sanzaru Games is - the people who did the Collection.

[Himu]

is that good or bad

[demi]

Probably bad

[Groogrux]

Took Arkham City back and now I'm going to try out Battlefield 3, even though I've been told it's absolute garbage...

[Bebpo]

is that good or bad

  Just pretend there is no Sly 4.

I love inFamous 2, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the first. Cause I much prefer the first one.

Festival Of Blood is pretty awesome though, I'm hoping Sucker Punch makes a full fledged vampire game after this.

What makes you prefer the first (spoiler tag it if it's story-related)?

[Bebpo]

I thought the missions got bad when you had to chase a train with a car.

I liked that mission well enough. The "Hold B Button to watch target" mechanic was underused, much like the rest of the new mechanics in GTA IV. It was also sad they didn't do more with the TW@ "internet terminals."

And meanwhile while you hold B and the camera pans upwards, you crash into a car (since the streets below the train are heavy with traffic) putting your car into a spin, the train gets some distance while you try to reverse and re-position yourself and then you fail the mission and have to do 10 mins of driving all over again to get back to that spot.

[chronovore]

I think it happened to me once, there. The "train" mission I had more trouble with was the Lost and Damned mission, riding on the train tracks on a chopper. I must have been overly caffeinated or something, but I ended up smacking into the same oncoming train maybe 6 times.

Also, same horse-crap problem left over from GTA: sure, "restart the mission" is nice, but not without the same condition you started last time! No weapons, no armor? "Yeah, sure; sign me up! Send me at 'em!"

[chronovore]

Oh, just finished Enslaved in time to see Mojozomgo jumping into it as well. What's the deal?

I've got 100% in many levels' tech orbs, but I think I've claimed all the low-hanging fruit I want off this. I'm still not into collect-a-thons, and I just barely begrudgingly finished all the Mask collection. 950/1000 will have to do!

[Bebpo]

Finished it.  I agree on the final boss fight.  It was way too short and easy, but I thought the reveal was actually pretty cool. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

or maybe I just like suave black men in my games

[close]

Otherwise, I can't think of a single thing I liked better in the first game.  I thought the city was better here thanks to COLOR, COLOR, and COLOR.  Was the opposite of grey and dull.  Super comic book looking colorful game and all those gorgeous skyboxes and time of day lighting vistas were just incredible.  From an art perspective, the game is one of the best I've seen this gen.  So in a superficial "I like pretty graphics way" I definitely preferred the new city even if the original might have been a more interesting design (I can't honestly recall, it's been too long).

Also I agree the ending is kind of odd. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

On one hand I think they had balls not to do a generic happy ending where everyone is saved.  But on the other hand I thought the final choice was pretty dick as there's no GOOD choice.  I didn't want to kill off Cole or Kou (who was actually kind of hot when she turned Ice-y), but I didn't want Zeke to die either!  They should have made a DLC ending that is a third choice and not-cannon.  It's not like there's going to be an Infamous 3 with that ending so who cares which ending is cannon!

[close]

I wrote up my thoughts in the gaf OT:

Just finished this (late to the party) and I gotta gush over how GOOD this game was.  I mean I really enjoyed Infamous, but this game felt like a nice leap over it in every department. 

First of all, the visuals are GORGEOUS.  The art design in this game is incredible.  Infamous was my first Sucker Punch game and I had no idea their artists were capable of this.  The game reminds me of God of War 3 in that it has this "looks like a painting/comic" look.  The skyboxes are some of the best I've seen and the parts where debris of various colors are flying around as you move...it looks insane.  But most of all just the pure COLOR everywhere.  The various times of day lighting and strong color push from characters to enemies to buildings to signs makes the game such a fresh breath of air compare to all the drab "realistic" looking games out there.  Even the character models during the in-game cutscenes looked truly excellent.  Visuals were 10/10 for me.

The MUSIC as well was also far better than I expected.  There were a lot of great mission songs and it really added a lot to the set pieces and story scenes.  Even just traversing with the atmospheric music was nice.

And the gameplay.  Man, the combat is so good!  I love how many options you have between all the powers and using the environment.  That combined with all the different types of enemies (and there were surprisingly a lot!) made combat a ton of fun.  Only thing I didn't like was having to watch the giant iceman falling death sequence each time because it's a bit too long.  The ice enemies were really fun to fight!  It was cool playing against super villain kind of characters with my own superhero powers; was like I was playing a Marvel sandbox game.

The missions were good.  The side missions were REALLY good.  90% of them were very fun and there were quick and bite-sized so it was fun to just run around and blow through a bunch of them expanding your territory.  The main missions started off a little slow but about when

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nix

[close]

shows up they start getting good and interesting.  I only wish the BIG boss enemies could have been a little more challenging to reflect that they are massive story bosses.  They had really simple patterns.

The powers and karma choice missions were awesome.  I loved how the game made traversal, which was already fast and great compared to most sandbox games, EVEN BETTER when you get

spoiler (click to show/hide)

super hover & [good karma]ice launch.

[close]

  I was moving around the city so fast it was crazy and it also made the game just so much fun because navigation was quick, combat was quick, side missions were quick, and there was lots to do.  I even got all the blast shards and dead drops and everything, even though I normally never go for 100% collectibles in games.  It was just fun here!

Story was good too.  I thought the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Beast twist

[close]

was pretty interesting and I liked the character development between the cast.  Some of the cutscenes were really nicely directed like the one where Cole and Zeke drink beer and then he uses the blast shard while Zeke sleeps.  I thought the character development was much better than the first even if the actual story was pretty light this time around in content.  The ending was kind of surprising and I dunno if I like it, but at least it was something different.  I think a

spoiler (click to show/hide)

generic hollywood ending that saves everyone, while being generic, would have actually been more satisfying for a colorful fun game like this.

[close]

Length seemed good and the city was a nice size and had a lot of variety.  Really liked the neon lights area and the flooded town areas.  Replay value seems good between being able to play as the opposite karma and the UGC missions which I did a handful and they're ok, but don't really compare to the main missions.

Overall the game was just pure fun while looking gorgeous and sounding great.  Had a blast from start to finish and really wouldn't change a thing except that I had a bunch of hard crashes throughout when exiting the start menu after changing powers and one or two just running around the city; luckily the game auto-saved a lot!

I'd put this up with Assassin's Creed 2 & Red Dead Redemption as my favorite sandbox experience this gen.  Sucker Punch has made me a fan with Infamous 2 and I can't wait to play whatever they put out next!  (will play Festival of Blood in 3-6 months after I give this time to cool)

[Bebpo]

So I popped RDR Undead Redemption back in since I have about 6-8 backlogged games in the last year that I'm sort of in the middle of that I'd like to finish out because I don't like leaving things unfinished.  I'm about a quarter of the way into UR and since it's short I figure I'll clear it up first.

I dunno if I like it at all.  I mean, I loved RDR.  It was one of the best games I've ever played.  But what made it a memorable experience was exploring this unknown land while meeting interesting characters and following a story that was actually interesting.  You were always progressing forward, exploring more and more while getting into crazier set pieces.  There were also things to do like sharpshooter challenges and treasures to find and bounties to hunt along the way to keep you interested.

Otoh, UR has nothing compelling.  It's the same old map you've already explored, there's nothing really to do besides shoot a shitload of zombies which is boring combat and do a handful of missions spread out.  The missions are alright, it's nice seeing more John Marston since he's a great character; but it's just a bunch of fanservice cutscenes really since it's not like there's much of a plot.  I dunno, it's not terrible, but I really feel like I'm just playing it for completion because it's short.  Like, is there even a need to save the towns if you don't care about achievements and just want to do all the missions in the DLC?  Because I doesn't seem like you need to, and since clearing towns is super boring I might start skipping that.  Though I still need to clear graveyards for what-his-name's mission.  Bleh.  Wouldn't be surprised if after another 2 hours I drop this again for another 3 months.  I think they probably could have structured this DLC a lot better.

[chronovore]

I appreciated that they tried something interesting and wildly different with the DLC, and I was happy to play as John again. It has a B-movie, freaky vibe, which I mostly liked, but it is not as fun as RDR overall.

Saving the towns is useful in that you can only save at safehouses, and you can only bunk in safe towns. If you're just playing through story missions, it will auto-save after each so, no, not necessary in the larger picture.

[demi]

SOTC's camera is god awful. Completely killing the game for me.