What are you playing?

[Cerveza mas fina]

First Light is the only Infamous game I played and I liked it.  Maybe you guys are burned out after playing 3 of them. I don't think I'd have liked it lasting longer then 5 hours though.

[toku]

No idea about SS but Infamous 2 is great. Put a lot of time and got fairly attached to it. Adored the halloween stand alone version too. Would have played an entire game about electric blood vampires 

[The Legend of Sunblade]

Festival of Blood got me to buy infamous 2. The former was still better cause of the sick bat warping.

I still liked Second Son though.

[Bebpo]

Infamous 1 was ok but very rough and gameplay was mostly concept demo.  Infamous 2 was great and Festival of Blood was the same greatness in condensed form.  The flow of the movement and combat was real satisfying and the New Orleans local had life to it and was neat to explore.  The best moments in Infamous 2 were player made when you had some great intense battles with powers flying everywhere and giant monsters and stuff.

SS is shiny, empty, soulless.  Just a generic city stand in with people walking around and enemies to fight.  There's nothing to do besides a couple of mini-games and the story missions have very little variety.  The combat is solid, but there's just nothing to use it on and the enemies are a bore to fight.  SS really feels like they just cared about making graphics graphics graphics and telling a story and designed a generic mediocre action game around it.  They took away the player making the cool stuff happen and tried to make it happen in scripted story scenes.  Just the wrong direction for a sandbox superhero action game to go.

Still, it wasn't awful; just bland and worthless.  And the other superhero Sandbox, Crackdown, did even worse with the 2nd outing; so hopefully Crackdown 3 is great again and if Sucker Punch does another Infamous it goes back to focusing on the gameplay.

[The Legend of Sunblade]

I liked the first half of infamous 2, but I really wish the game ended around the time you move up to Flood town. That whole area is just incredibly annoying to traverse, compounded with enemies starting to get reused ad nauseum and those super annoying "turret" sections that went on forever. In fact, I remember overall enemy variety being a complaint I had about 2 which Second Son also shares. Only the first game actually changed up the enemies you fight significantly in every district.

Really the only power I missed in second son was ice. They gave you a lot of options for horizontal movement, but I missed being able to do huge vertical leaps like you could do with the ice pillars. Huge missed opportunity to turn the Rock power into that (not to mention only being able to use it after beating the game).

[kick51]

i played 10 minutes of first light and promptly turned it off.  I didn't give it a real chance as a game, but everything about its style just seemed so lame.  especially the main character's heavy new york accent. 

[demi]

I'm back into the Vidya and have been playing Dark Souls 2 a lot. Never beat it the first time round so I started again and I'm almost done now. WIll totally smang the DLC too because the game is sick. I'm all DEX all the time! Poison Ricard's Rapier OP!

Also beat Medals of Duty: Advanced Combat on my brothers PS4. The game was probably too advanced

Why the fuck are you playing Dark Souls 2 when the GOTY/DLC version is coming to boner and ps4 next month.

[toku]

Infamous 1 was ok but very rough and gameplay was mostly concept demo.  Infamous 2 was great and Festival of Blood was the same greatness in condensed form.  The flow of the movement and combat was real satisfying and the New Orleans local had life to it and was neat to explore.  The best moments in Infamous 2 were player made when you had some great intense battles with powers flying everywhere and giant monsters and stuff.

SS is shiny, empty, soulless.  Just a generic city stand in with people walking around and enemies to fight.  There's nothing to do besides a couple of mini-games and the story missions have very little variety.  The combat is solid, but there's just nothing to use it on and the enemies are a bore to fight.  SS really feels like they just cared about making graphics graphics graphics and telling a story and designed a generic mediocre action game around it.  They took away the player making the cool stuff happen and tried to make it happen in scripted story scenes.  Just the wrong direction for a sandbox superhero action game to go.

Still, it wasn't awful; just bland and worthless.  And the other superhero Sandbox, Crackdown, did even worse with the 2nd outing; so hopefully Crackdown 3 is great again and if Sucker Punch does another Infamous it goes back to focusing on the gameplay.

Really underrated score too:

[Bebpo]

Finished Metro 2033 Redux and really, really liked it.  The game gave me a huge Half-life 2 feel.  Very interesting setting, immersive world lore with all the various human factions along with mutants, monsters and supernatural anomalies.  Very good use of first person cutscenes; felt like half the game was an adventure, the other have was combat and it mixed up the scenarios in a well done level design way.  Always felt like something new and the game isn't long enough to overstay its welcome (took about 8-9 hours).  Fantastic use of lighting and particle effects along with flashlight effects, tessellation and good character models made it looks gorgeous at times.  The detail put into the various stations and things along the way really just adds to creating a fantastic world that feels alive.  And even though it was a linear FPS, there still were little optionally things to find and choices to make.  Just very, very good.  Only disappointment was the game doesn't go far enough with fleshing out The Dark Ones and more of the supernatural elements, but hopefully Last Light will bring more exposition to the table there. 

I don't play many FPS games, so I'm glad that I usually just play the cream of the crop stuff.  This and Wolfenstein have been good times; though Metro was definitely a much better game than Wolf and felt less scripted; but Wolf was good shooting gallery fun and very glad I played both.  Will probably jump on Last Light pretty soon since I wanna see what they can do with this interesting world 2033 created.

[Rufus]

Did you shoot the Dark One at the end?

[The Sceneman]

I'm back into the Vidya and have been playing Dark Souls 2 a lot. Never beat it the first time round so I started again and I'm almost done now. WIll totally smang the DLC too because the game is sick. I'm all DEX all the time! Poison Ricard's Rapier OP!

Also beat Medals of Duty: Advanced Combat on my brothers PS4. The game was probably too advanced

Why the fuck are you playing Dark Souls 2 when the GOTY/DLC version is coming to boner and ps4 next month.

Becuase I own neither PS4 nor boner, and am planning to purchase the DLC. How much does the redux add gameplay wise?

[kick51]

I'm back into the Vidya and have been playing Dark Souls 2 a lot. Never beat it the first time round so I started again and I'm almost done now. WIll totally smang the DLC too because the game is sick. I'm all DEX all the time! Poison Ricard's Rapier OP!

Also beat Medals of Duty: Advanced Combat on my brothers PS4. The game was probably too advanced

Why the fuck are you playing Dark Souls 2 when the GOTY/DLC version is coming to boner and ps4 next month.

Becuase I own neither PS4 nor boner, and am planning to purchase the DLC. How much does the redux add gameplay wise?

It'll be 60fps.  I think there are some other ps4 exclusive additions.   i won't be trying it for a while, it's like 2 weeks after bloodborne.  unless bloodborne is somehow that bad.

[MrAngryFace]

Shin Gundam Musou, Oreshika, and Monster Strike this week- a little SW4 on remote play

[Bebpo]

Did you shoot the Dark One at the end?

Didn't have a choice, didn't get enough moral good points to get the good ending.  But I watched it on youtube after and it was the better ending.  Too bad it's non-canon.


Been looking around at Last Light impressions and glad to hear most people think it's a darn good sequel.  Can't wait to play it.

[sarslip]

after beating Witcher 2 a second time on the Elfen path I decided to finally dig in to Deus Ex HR.

PHEW

The atmosphere thick like Blade Runner, the music is like ME1, the characters are thoughtful, the gunplay feels powerful, the stealth feels powerful, the upgrade trees are non linear, the hub world with perfectly paced non-linear missions, damn, this is good stuff.

Nothing "this gen" has come out this strong imo, or taken this many risks

this game has so many different systems and they all seem to work. 

the AI is even mostly great, and it certainly employs AI strategy beyond just throwing perfectly placed grenades at your feet

Jensen should sound corny and over-the-top with his Batman impersonation, but even that works!

can't wait to see more, i'm only about four hours in, and i've heard boss fights suck?  but suck less with the special edition release i'm playing?  anyway, at this point it's just so great, so aesthetically different from anything else on the market, reminds me so much of old pc games, that i am absolutely loving this shit 

isnt a sequel supposedly being announced soon?


oh yeah, and both Metro games are fantastic too, if you havent played them. Wolfenstein is overhyped and just OK, compared to what I've seen in Deus EX so far, and Metro is just flat out better than Wolf imo.  Nobody really talks about Metro like they do Wolf tho. 

Shit that Raven 2009 Wolf is slept on as fuck.  Had cool powers, amazing Raven in their prime violent gunplay, and a decent semi-non-linear mission design. 

[Rufus]

Jensen should sound corny and over-the-top with his Batman impersonation, but even that works!

Amazingly, that's actually the VAs natural tone.

[sarslip]

Jensen should sound corny and over-the-top with his Batman impersonation, but even that works!

Amazingly, that's actually the VAs natural tone.

whoa, yeah i almost always choose "crush" option in dialog just to hear him say some "quit whining you fucking bitch" typa shit

snow everywhere here today, guess i know what im doing

[sarslip]

I heard I should avoid Missing Link until im farther along, any tips for how to avoid starting it accidentally?

[cool breeze]

if you're playing the special edition/director's cut, Missing Link should be integrated into the main game at the appropriate spot.


and yeah, deus ex 4 is probably the (announced) game I most want, sight unseen.  it's been announced like "hey we're making this" for months now.

[demi]

I heard I should avoid Missing Link until im farther along, any tips for how to avoid starting it accidentally?

Missing Link starts at the sequence where Jensen hides in a container for part of the story, I think.

[Rufus]

Yeah, if it's installed you can't avoid it. Nor is there any real reason to.

[I'm a Puppy!]

3DS got stolen

So I pulled out the old DS and started a game of SMT: Strange Journey I'm only on the second area. It's ok and fun, but everyone makes it out to be the bee's knees but so far it just seems like a passable game. Good, but nothing really remarkable to make it worth all the praise heaped on it.

[Bebpo]

Finished Escape Goat 2, started off kind of a retreated of the original which was a great, great game, but becomes it's own game with a lot of new additions, good puzzles and nice polish that the original didn't have.  Liked everything except the final world puzzle mechanic kind of broke my brain.

[Bebpo]

Started playing Batman: Arkham Origins, just kind of speed running through the main story because I only played AC recently and I'm gonna play AK in June so don't wanna get burned out.  Surprisingly enjoyable so far!  Thought it'd be weak from the bad word of mouth and non-Rocksteady developer, but I like the fast travel points, I like the interface improvements (the title screen menus red/black contrast stuff are really well done), the graphics actually look a lot nicer than AC; there's a lot more color and effects, plus Batman and the characters seem more toon-shaded and I like the stylized look a lot. 

Only negative so far (just at the tail end of Penguin's ship), is that there's hardly any stealth options yet and it's mainly just a brawler.

[archie4208]

oh god I made it about an hour into Final Fantasy 13-2 before I turned that garbage off.

I played some Mario Kart and MGS3 instead. 

[I'm a Puppy!]

The only way I was able to play ff13 2 was to pretend serah had a severe brain injury.  That made it much more bearable. But I still only made it about 5 hours in. I did get about an hour or so of fun from the sazh dlc,  but did find it funny that 1) square finally has a prominent black character who just by happenstance is a single father and has to gamble to get his kid back. And 2) that the only way he can fight is to be summoned to fight on someone else's behalf 

[kick51]

The only way I was able to play ff13 2 was to pretend serah had a severe brain injury. 

haha, had to do the same thing with the chick in 999, the main character's childhood friend or whatever.  she's like fucking 8 years old in the brain.  Phi in VLR was a complete 180 from her and way cooler as a result.

[Supermanisdead]

That spinning clock board game thing in the Sazh DLC of 13-2 is really great. I spent way too much time playing it.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Ok guys, is there anything more to SMT: Strange Journey?
I mean as an dungeon exploration game, EOIV did it way better.
There's not enough loot for this to be a loot game.
The story is bare bones.
The demon fusion stuff is fun.
I was just lead to believe there was more to it than this.

[tiesto]

Catassed Adventures of Lolo and beat it. Want to try to go through the other 2 games at some point, too. Loved this series as a kid but I don't think I ever beat any.

[Bebpo]

Ok guys, is there anything more to SMT: Strange Journey?
I mean as an dungeon exploration game, EOIV did it way better.
There's not enough loot for this to be a loot game.
The story is bare bones.
The demon fusion stuff is fun.
I was just lead to believe there was more to it than this.

Hmmm, yeah the story is weak, it's barebones and not all that great in the end.  That and the lack of musical tracks are the only real knocks against the game.

Otherwise the dungeon crawling, battle system, challenge, atmosphere is awesome and better than SMTIV.  It's a very different beast than EO.  SMT is about kickass battles at a fast pace, awesome bosses, great atmosphere, demon fusion.  EO is like slow paced wander around with a kind of boring, but it works, battle system imo in generic atmosphere environment.  EO's strength is the puzzles of exploring huge single floors and mapping them out.  SMT's strength is in the fast pacing and great combat along with fantastic character/demon sub-systems.

But then again I don't really care for EO that much and they never compel me to play any to completion, whereas with SMT I can't put it down until I see the credits roll.  Ymmv.

[Rufus]

I got bored of Strange Journey somewhere near the end. Only one floor left to go, I think. Had fun until then, but just lost all will to see it through, partly because it was on the DS, which I only play late at night in bed. It took forever to get anywhere.

Yakuza 2 actually has some pretty well directed cutscenes. Relatively subtle dialogue, too. They show rather than tell, nice angles, believable human drama. Amidst absolutely over the top improbable and cheesy nonsense, but still.

[sarslip]

i read to avoid typhoon cause it never comes in handy  :'(

yeah im actually in Hengsha 2, and my praise is still very high for this game

it's just never frustrating or dull.  if i die, im usually saying to myself, "well, that approach was dumb af." 

it is more deliberate in its pacing than most games, but that's what sucks you in. 

stupid, insignificant, shit that has no business being good or working, works to the letter, in this game

it has just the right amount of side quests, that have their own story arcs and cool resolutions.  i can see myself beating this game again.  Witcher 2 was a slog to beat a second time.  i did it mostly to re familiarize myself with the story and setting. 

[The Legend of Sunblade]

I abused the fuck out of Typhoon just to make the bosses a piece of cake in the original version (I ran a stealth build. so I was fucked in straight combat). No regrets at all.

[demi]

Ok guys, is there anything more to SMT: Strange Journey?
I mean as an dungeon exploration game, EOIV did it way better.
There's not enough loot for this to be a loot game.
The story is bare bones.
The demon fusion stuff is fun.
I was just lead to believe there was more to it than this.

Do most tards compare older games to newer ones or is this an Obama thing? EO is nothing at all like Strange Journey.

[Rufus]

They're both first-person map-drawing dungeon crawlers with turn based combat. You field an ever changing array of demons in one, but that's pretty much all that differentiates it from the genre.

[Bebpo]

Do you draw the map in SJ?  I don't remember.  In my mind that's an EO mechanic.


Also they're pretty different.  SMT is about story and atmosphere while exploring (besides battles/sub-systems).  You're continually advancing in a fucked up world towards the next event.  It's not really about exploring the map.  EO is like "here is this big ass floor, have fun exploring it!"

I'd say it's almost the difference between a linear and non-linear rpg.

[archie4208]

SJ is god tier.  Up there with Nocturne. 

[Bebpo]

If the story was better and there were 4x the amount of music tracks I'd agree.  SMTIV has better story/music variety, but was a big step down in dungeons and challenge.  They're both good, but Nocturne is still king.

[Rufus]

Do you draw the map in SJ?  I don't remember.  In my mind that's an EO mechanic.

It auto-draws, but functionality wise it's the same thing. I don't remember if you can mark stuff yourself. 

I only played the first Etrian Odyssey though, so I don't know what they with the further titles in the series, but they're really not that different. The floors are smaller in SJ, but at the end of the day they're both grid-based, turn-based dungeon crawlers.

[Phoenix Dark]

Decided to go back to Icewind Dale. Previously I had gotten stuck in the first cave; I couldn't beat the ogre. I quit the game for months but recently I've had a huge RPG itch. Path of Exile's next big patch is over a month away from releasing, Pillars Of Eternity looks intriguing, and I want to try Divinity Original Sin (but will wait for a steam sale). So I read up on the game, D&D rules...basically I did all the prep I should have done months ago. Figured out the best stats for each class and formed a solid party - two fighters, a thief, a cleric, a mage, and a druid.

I killed the ogre with ease, shit was dope. My fighters do crazy damage and are solid tanks, and I use the thief to scout enemies so I avoid bad situations.

Right now my biggest complaint about the game really boils down to UI stuff. That's really a product of the time tbh. From what I've seen Pillars Of Eternity fixes a lot of those issues by modernizing shit.

[Rufus]

Icewind Dale is a treat. Your party is going to kick ass before long.

Dunno about that treehugging Druid though. He's most likely to leech XP for no tangible benefit.

[tiesto]

Psychic World, some obscure early Game Gear game. Its a sidescroller starring some animu girl with ESP, where you get different weapons/abilities, such as the ability to freeze frost to make ice platforms... and enemies have certain weaknesses (ice-based enemies weak to fire)... not a bad game but for some dumb reason, your health doesn't refill after you beat a stage, nor if you die and continue (you will start with whatever ESP/Life you had when you first got to the stage).

Also played some Golden Axe 2... beat em ups aren't really my favorite of the classic genres but this one ain't too bad. It feels like a retread of the first game, and its no where near the jump the SOR series saw between 1 and 2. Going back and playing it makes me wish we got a home port of Revenge of Death Adder though...

[Phoenix Dark]

Icewind Dale is a treat. Your party is going to kick ass before long.

Dunno about that treehugging Druid though. He's most likely to leech XP for no tangible benefit.

Yea my druid is wack. I created one for secondary healing, and he definitely does a good job of that...but offense wise he isn't pulling his weight. Right now he has one cool dmg spell (like a fire bolt or some shit) but that's about it.

My two fighters and the thief are definitely the real MVP. Thief is super accurate with the bow so I shoot enemies and run back to where my fighters are posted up. Easy work.

My mage is aite. I've read they are weak in the early game so I'm not expecting much. She's very effective with a sling shot but doesn't know enough spells to be truly dangerous. I'm sure she'll be fine though. 

Killed a bunch of yetis and skeletons today, pretty easy work. 

[demi]

Just finished Walking Dead Season 2... definitely not as FEELS as the first one, and the ending(s) arent really as ambiguous. Dunno what exactly they would do with a Season 3, I don't really find Clementine that interesting anymore. I also got annoyed that everyone would be like "oh hi Clementine ur so young heehee" and then a minute later would be like WHAT THE FUCK CLEMENTINE YOU PIECE OF SHIT GOD

She is one durable fuckin 11 year old.

[Joe Molotov]

Did you want to protect her?

[demi]

Not really, totally in the first one tho

[Joe Molotov]

Mass Effect 2 was awesome. 3 was awesome too, just the ending was dumb.

Oh yeah, and always punch the reporter, even if you're playing Paragon.

[Positive Touch]

lol I'd like to see bioware do a stat breakdown of how many punched the reporter vs how many didn't

[I'm a Puppy!]

I never got the big deal about Mass Effect. I played 1 and 2. They were enjoyable enough, I guess. But it just seemed too formulaic to me (like all Bioware games). Start with a tutorial mission. Go to the hub world. Finish x number of scenarios and get characters. Talk to characters enough to get their missions. Do the missions. Never talk to the character again. Do another x number of scenarios to unlock final mission. Done.

Also, it felt very disjointed. I think that might have to do with the fact that a different team did each mission.

[bork]

I liked Mass Effect 1 and loved Mass Effect 2.  Never finished 3.  Not even sure if I got halfway through it.  Just got bored of it and then those shitty endings were revealed, so I quit playing.

[mormapope]

Worst things about Mass Effect 3:

PTSD being mishandled completely, Shepard should have nightmares revolving around regret and everyone that has died along the way. Chasing a kid through a burnt forest is really weird and dumb, doesn't fit Mass Effect at all.

Child fetish. The air duct kid in the beginning, nightmares revolving around the kid, space kid hologram. Fuck all of that kid shit.

Tali being a stock photo person. Future kid talking to an adult that's the same character model. The DLC message after the credits.


Everything else ranged from meh to fantastic. Mass Effect 3 is a great game, the entire series is great, way better than Dragon Age.

[sarslip]

3 brought back the great synth music and more in-depth character customization,

i like the entire trilogy with 2 being my favorite

[Rufus]

Yakuza 2 actually has some pretty well directed cutscenes. Relatively subtle dialogue, too. They show rather than tell, nice angles, believable human drama. Amidst absolutely over the top improbable and cheesy nonsense, but still.

And then Osaka castle splits in half, a bigger, golden castle emerges from the ground. You fight your way through against samurai and shinobi. At the top, you fight two tigers. Feral tigers, the game specifies, as if there were any other kind. Some hard swings.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

AC Black Flag was really great. Shame the series seems to be settling back into blandness rather than taking more risks.

[Madrun Badrun]

Fire emblem 3DS.  Very good.  Like the pairing shit.

[The Legend of Sunblade]

Swapped over to the English version of Final Fantasy Record Keeper now that its out. I was expecting it to launch with less features than the super updated JPN version, but man this is taking some getting used to. Doesn't even have the individual victory themes for each game, which I hope was part of an update in the original and isn't a localization change like those awful character profiles.  :'(

[Positive Touch]

the minor changes made are pretty wtf considering this is a f2p title (why does it run like shit btw?) but as long as they include all the content I'm good

[Bebpo]

AC Black Flag was really great. Shame the series seems to be settling back into blandness rather than taking more risks.

Only AC worth a damn outside the AC2 series.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

AC Black Flag was really great. Shame the series seems to be settling back into blandness rather than taking more risks.

Only AC worth a damn outside the AC2 series.

Sounds about right. I'll get Rogue at some point when it's cheap, but it sounds like a complete rehash.