What Are You Playing?

Oburi

All praise Grail
Yea Reach was fun. I'm now trying to kick me some ass online, it gets very aggravating, but i usually find myself coming out on top. The campaign was a little bittersweet for me. I enjoyed it being the prequel to the first Halo but again my main problem is length and levels. I breezed right through it in one sitting (on co-op) and I admit I enjoyed the terrain and setting of Halo 3 better. Reach didn't quit match that epic scope I thought it would. You "see" some big battles in the distance, you see the massive scarabs (i think they are called) climbing up mountain sides, but you never actually get to take them down ( like you could do a few times in Halo 3). Also, yea the graphics are nice and everything but again, its like they took certain things out. No blood splatter on walls or floors? shit man Halo 1 had that! It's kind of how I feel about Mass Effect 2, still a great play-through and beauty to look at, but with certain things added at the expensive of other things being taken away, i still find myself longing for a Halo sequel that will never completely satisfy. As far as I'm concerned, Halo 1 will always be a great game and Halo 3 was the pinnacle of the franchise. ODST and Reach are nice, but just variations of an already great fps franchise.

Anyway, I also played the demos for two arcade games, Limbo and Shadow Complex and I loved them both! But with limited funds I can only choose one, which will it be!? ... Well on the advice of a certain gamer I know is trustworthy (thank you!) I went with Shadow Complex, and considering it's length I'll feel like I'm getting more for my buck. Awesome fun!
 

Aphasia

ALL MYSTERIES MUST BE SOLVED
Be sure to pick up Limbo at some point, too. It's no slouch and so worth the money.

I hear you a little bit. It would be cool to be able to go "to" or partake in all the crazy stuff you see happen in the distance. Maybe they do this because of engine restrictions, for example...The tip of the spear cutscene. I thought I was going to actually drive a warthog straight into an oncoming covenant force. I remember seeing quite a bit of blood around, though.

Haven't ever played through 3. It took me a while to get a 360 so I spoiled the story by watching the cutscenes. Kind of a shame because I'll never know what it was like to play through and experience the story brand new.

But Overall it's a very fun experience. I imagine whenever matchmaking campaign comes online and we get some DLC, the game will feel even more rounded. : )

How do you feel Mass Effect 2 was...Effected? :badbone: Just curious. I played through the demo because I've always been on the rail about it. I enjoyed it, but maybe I just don't dig the vibe.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
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Civilization V launched yesterday, and I played it for about 7 hours. It's a huge improvement for the series, though while some areas have been streamlined, I get the sense that came at the cost of being less dense and complex as Civilization IV. However, that perception could come from the fact that I was new to the franchise when IV came out, but by the time V landed, I'd invested dozens of hours in learning how the system works.

But even with a good understanding of the basics of Civ, there are a number of changes to adapt to in V, nearly all of which are for factors of the game I found obnoxious, primarily combat and religion. Civ V does away with religion completely, which I'm thankful for. I never quite knew what the fuck I was doing in that portion of the game anyway.

Religion, as well as political systems, have been replaced with "social policies," which you purchase with culture points. Each social policy has a branching tree structure (think Diablo) which gives direct perks like "+1 happiness in all cities." Every two dozen turns or so, you'll have accumulated enough culture points to buy a new policy trait or adopt a new policy, with bonuses that stack on top of the ones you've already bought.

The in-game menus do an excellent job of explaining the repercussions and benefits of actions you take. This was always a problem for me in Civ IV. If you ever find yourself lost about a rule or system in Civ V, the in-game "civlopedia" is a huge, searchable help guide and has been very useful for me.

Despite an exciting first 100 turns or so, I encountered some tedium toward the end game, because I've already conquered my main continent, and spread across to the other one, where all the remaining civs appear to be rubbing two sticks together still. I've been playing at normal speed and default difficulty, but next time I'm definitely going to bump up the difficulty a notch.

Another huge improvement is combat. In Civ IV, to invade a city you simply shat out a cubic assload of varying offensive units, moved them into the same tile and bombarded a city until one side lost, or both got bored with the tedious process and called the whole thing off. In Civ V, no two units can occupy in the same tile. This forces you to plan your approach on an invasion. and think about the terrain around the area. Some units may specialize in rough terrain, others in open. Ranged units also actually have ranged attacks, and are no longer simply the go-to guys for defending cities. With this new system, a soldier can stand in front of a ranged attacker, and you can essentially do double damage to any unit in each turn, as long as you've planned for it correctly. It's utterly rewarding when you pull this maneuver off.

The changes and additions to Civ V have streamlined the quirks and math headaches wrought by former games in the franchise. At this point, anyone interested in strategy games has no excuse not to give this series a fair shake. The demo, featuring 100 turns of a full game, is out now on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/
 
I am in the process of playing Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Out of the games, this one to me is the hardest of them all so far. The combat to the story have been enjoyable to me. Graphics wise, the game looks like it could be on the PS2, meaning the graphics are great. I'd give it a 9/10 and its definitely not a title you should miss for the PSP.
 
PublicEnemy said:
I am in the process of playing Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Out of the games, this one to me is the hardest of them all so far. The combat to the story have been enjoyable to me. Graphics wise, the game looks like it could be on the PS2, meaning the graphics are great. I'd give it a 9/10 and its definitely not a title you should miss for the PSP.

I like the game a lot too. I got Metal Gear Peace Walker to play through yet. But Birth by Sleep has been taking a lot of my time. Amazing what they can fit on these small disc. The new Fall Out approaches, I'm getting pretty excited!
 
Death May Die said:
I like the game a lot too. I got Metal Gear Peace Walker to play through yet. But Birth by Sleep has been taking a lot of my time. Amazing what they can fit on these small disc. The new Fall Out approaches, I'm getting pretty excited!
Peace walker became repetitive after 35 hours, all this endless BTR/Tank/Helicopter battles. -_- I still play Dragon Quest VIII on my PS2(the game's just awesome) and I started on PC-version of Dead Space, pretty interesting reminds me of RE4.
 

Dar_Klink

Last Guardian when? - CyberKlink 20XX before dying
perros said:
Minecraft. I just found a utility that makes your Dwarfs Fortress save playable in Minecraft.
Neck hairs just sprouted up and I think I developed autism from reading this post.

Myself, I'm playing the XIV retail edition now. I still enjoy it although not as much is changed from beta as I thought, so I might wait for a few patches or so after my 30 day free trial.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
GoodOldGames.com just landed Planescape Torment for $10. The game's legendary, and you should get it.

http://www.gog.com/en/news/new_release_planescape_torment/0

GoG also recently got Age of Wonders and Baldur's Gate, with several more big-name titles coming soon. We're all expecting the inevitable Baldur's Gate 2. I skipped BG1, but I'll definitely get BG2 when it hits.
 
Walter said:
GoodOldGames.com just landed Planescape Torment for $10. The game's legendary, and you should get it.

Yesterday I bought my friend's extremely old 4CD version of this game for $25. :mozgus:

I'm about 7 hours in and am totally addicted.
 
Walter said:
GoodOldGames.com just landed Planescape Torment for $10. The game's legendary, and you should get it.

http://www.gog.com/en/news/new_release_planescape_torment/0

GoG also recently got Age of Wonders and Baldur's Gate, with several more big-name titles coming soon. We're all expecting the inevitable Baldur's Gate 2. I skipped BG1, but I'll definitely get BG2 when it hits.

Still got my big box from when this game was first released.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I didn't even know that was out. Whoa. Not trying to be diminutive, but reviewers were calling it "Square-Enix's take on God of War." Is that accurate or is there a lot more to it?
 
A lot more. I don't like God of War, if that helps your case? It's actually far more like a Zelda title but it feels honestly like a current gen Crystalis, the world is full of decadence/despair/darkness but not in the generic manner at all. It even pays homage to both Zelda and Ueda games in more ways than one and even defies genres; one dungeon is designed around an old school Zelda game where your perspective is from a birds eye viewpoint, another dungeon is from a Diablo perspective (isometric), another dungeon is entirely text-based adventure. And so on and so forth. You don't get more variety in terms of dungeons than in this game (most of them aren't even dungeons The combat is great and after a certain point in the game, you can obtain two different weapon types that change the gameplay immensely. It brings up many moments of nostalgia and is incredibly inspired. Some people moan about the visuals, but I think they work well. And there's even a Dragon Slayer in the game (no joke about it, it's almost exactly the same design).

The storyline is excellent, the characters are unforgettable and all that completely changes on NG+ (your perception of many characters change as you see events occur from another character's perspective. Damn am I using "perspective" and "viewpoint" a lot here, forgive the lack of any better terms). I think it is the most underrated game I've played in my life. I recommend New York Times review (he was the only person who truly got what Nier is all about: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/arts/television/04nier.html)

I felt like the game melded many genres together perfectly unlike any other game I've played before it. The game plays like a celebration of every good adventure game and RPG I've ever played. A lot of love was put into this game. I know I sound like I'm gushing uncontrollably, but eh.. Basically, you have to play this game to see why. :slan:
 
Henry Spencer said:
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Really is quite the incredible game. One of my favourites now and I'm playing it through for the fourth time (to acquire the final ending).
I wanted to play this game since I saw the first teaser, and it was audio only. I read many interviews and soon as it came out, I bought the game for PS3, still, I don't own the system.=) And, yeah, about the DS I have some screenshots from gameplay footage somewhere, it looks cool, but a bit smaller than original.
 
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
Why not wait to buy it when you have a PS3 or wait until after the price drop.
Actually I bought it quite cheap, for about 22 bucks. I got many cheap stuff that would definitely play in the future, like Heavy Rain, Uncharted 1-2, MGS 4, Valkyria Chronicles, etc.

Th3Branded0ne said:
Just finished MG Solid : Peacewalker. I enjoyed it, just kinda hard shooting too much on the psp.
Are you sure? Even the fifth chapter Outer Heaven? What about extra missions?
 
Konketsuji said:
Peace walker became repetitive after 35 hours, all this endless BTR/Tank/Helicopter battles.

Just wanted to say that I agree with you here for the most part. The story is good enough for me even if it is full of WTF moments (just weird stuff in general) and I really loved the ending (chapter 5 ending that is). It makes me want a remake of the original Metal Gear so bad, though it would be tough to see Snake and Big Boss face off after what we've witnessed with Peace Walker and MGS3. I even had fun doing most of the extra ops, but once you finish chapter 5 it's just endless tank and helicopter grind and I lost interest quickly. I'm not sure how people can stay entertained fighting just a slightly more difficulty helicopter literally 10 different times. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad but it takes forever to kill most bosses. I nearly lost my shit when I died after fighting the final boss for nearly 30 minutes (my hands were so sore) and had to start over again.

Otherwise, great game but the extra ops/bosses really needed some more variety.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
I finally played and beat shadow complex and limbo. Both great games. I also played the dead rising 2 arcade game that is a prequel to the official dead rising 2. Honestly I realld didn't like it. Maybe I'm just zombied out by now but it wasn't that great I even noticed some glitches! Just really not that fun of a game.
 
So I just discovered and began playing Project Legacy, an Assassin's Creed game on Facebook. So far it's pretty basic but interesting and good at killing 5 minutes or so here and there.

-Brotherhood players will be able to unlock 25 exclusive missions in Project Legacy. As players progress through Project Legacy, they will also unlock content for Brotherhood.

I plan on getting Brotherhood myself and if this game leads to some bonus content can it really hurt?
If you would like an invite to build up a big clan feel free to let me know. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=115902524

http://apps.facebook.com/projectlegacy/
 
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