f13.net

I will start.

Primary rotation:
Super Paper Mario
Twilight Princess
Final Fantasy XII
Ar tonelico
Dead Rising

Secondary rotation:
God of War II (second play)
Sam + Max

Tertiary rotation:
Oblivion
SMT: Digital Devil Saga
Gears of War

Leering at me from the shelf:
WarioWare (Wii)
Okami

Abra Academy
Nethack
Silly Balls

Counter-Strike: Source
Diablo II: LoD

Waiting for fucking LAIR and Warhawk to come out so I can stop replaying Resistance.

Hmm..

Garou: Mark of the Wolves/MVS
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon/PSP
Puzzle Quest/PSP & DS
Twinkle Star Sprites/MVS
Marvel Super Heroes/CPS2
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night/XBL
Final Fantasy VI/GBA

What is MVS?

XBox 360:
Gears of War (still)
Rainbow 6: Vegas (online only)
Call of Duty 3 (online only)

PC:
Nothing

PS2
* Shadow of the Colossus
* Bully
* FFXII
* God of War

PC
* Eve

Board/Card
* Power Grid
* Corruption
* Gloom
* Lunch Money

I'm assuming by "playing" you mean "gets play at least once every two weeks".

Neo Geo.  The MVS was the arcade system. Wider boards, no frills, cheaper price. 

I have the home system.  Paid for Shodown 1-4, 200-300 each, new.  If I had the MVS hardware, I could have gotten boards for 108 or so.

PS 2: GT 3, Fight Night 3, Shadow of the Colossus

PC: Football manager (formerly Championship manager), CoH, and DAoC

Other: Poker, Bridge, Dalmuti

Samsho 5 runs about $100-$120 new on MVS and Samsho V Special runs about $150-$250. Depends on arts and such. Also, it dropped - obviously - when Samsho 6 came out, but maintains a certain price point because Samsho6 is on Atomiswave.

X-Box:
FIFA 07
Forza

Have started these X-Box Games, but not really touched them much because of FIFA and soccer on TV
King Kong
Flatout 2
Superman Returns
True Crime

Wii:
Zelda
Madden NFL07
Super Swing Golf
(Just sent back Trauma Center on a rental)

PC:
World of Warcraft
Warrock (Intermittent)

PC:
World of Warcraft
Stalker
Company of Heroes

GBA/DS:
Phoenix Wright: Justice for All
FF6

PS2:
FF12 (slowly.)

How is it that you aren't playing Football Manager?  Don't like sports sims? 

To me Sho IV is the pinnacle of the 2D fighter.  I love the little shit like, select-select-select to throw your weapon down (then catch theirs).  Or the suicide moves.  Useful versus dirty ass Sogetsu.  Fuck Sogetsu.

Both times I played V, it seemed less polished, and the graphics were oversaturated.. or something.  Blobby.  Could have been the cabinets.  I haven't even seen VI.

Mark of the Wolves is only as good as your friends pool.  I hated it single player, but when I was able to play with friends, it is a great fighter.  Not the best graphics, but crazy good animation and hit-feel.  It took me a bit to unlearn other fighting games and see MotW's greatness.

I much prefer simmy/actiony games than pure sims. I don't feel involved enough in pure sims, and sports games are one area where I really miss at least some semblance of 3d representation of the game. It doesn't have to be pixel-sweat level, merely Madden/FIFA level, which still isn't bad.

Well, can you recommend a solid play-style soccer game for the ps 2?  I've heard good things about Winning Eleven, but haven't picked it up yet.

Civilization IV - Fall From Heaven II mod

It's making me type things. Things which reek dangerously of design docs.

WoW
Half-Life 2 (first time playing)
God of War 2 (why don't I like this one as much, taking me forever to get around to beating it)
Oblivion (guess I'm a LCD tard.  Haters made me crave another play through. The combat is pretty bad though)
Medieval 2: Total War (off and on, don't like this as much as Rome and for some reason I'm terrible at it)

Need to revisit/beat:
Disgaea 1
Rogue Galaxy (want to beat but I hate every side activity in this game, factory/insector)
Shadow of the Colossus
NWN 2
Bully
(Yikes, notice a theme. I think I need to apologize to my PS2)


I'm never at a loss for things to play.  Adding a 360 to the mix later is just gonna foul things up worse.

Rasix, I never did Insector a single time and never bothered with more than 3 total items in the factory. The first 2 they ask you to make and Alexander for some fusion shit. Wait, maybe not Alexander. Well. Whatever. It was a sword.

I didn't like Winning Eleven very much, but a lot of that had to do with not having licensed teams. FIFA 07 is really really solid, but I'd recommend renting both before deciding on one. They are both solid games, I just happened to start playing with EA's World Cup 2006 game and was more comfortable with that style than WE9 or 10 or whatever number it was.

These are fun.

PS2
Valkyrie Profile 2
Disgaea 1 - 2nd time through
FFVII

360
EDF
MLB 2k7
Viva Pinata

PS3
VF5
Motorstorm
Resistance

PC
DoD:S

I really should learn to concentrate on 1 - 2 games at a time.

Motorstorm
Lumines Plus

PC:
HoMM V. I'm actually going through the campaign. I also have the expansion, but haven't done a ton with it yet.
Galactic Civilizations 2 Gold Edition. Includes the expansion. I love the game, but I haven't played it in a few weeks because it has a tendency to suck up hours at a time.
Baldur's Gate. Haven't touched it in months, but I eventually want to finish it and import an evil Sorcerer into BG2 and go through that with an evil party.
CoX. Another I haven't in at least a month. I also have CoV box sitting around that I got for free, but I haven't installed it yet.
http://noxins.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=27# (http://noxins.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=27#)  - It's fun.

PS2:
La Pucelle Tactics. Still slogging away at it once in awhile. I like it, but I can't get myself to play more than a single battle or two at a time for some reason.
Fight Night Round 3. Usually only with a buddy of mine on a custom fighter's career. We're at the point where everyone we fight has max stats; quite the cockblock.

PS2 Games That I Have Sitting In A Stack On The Floor and They're Staring Me In The Face:
Disgaea
Disgaea 2
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X2
Final Fantasy XII
Suikoden 3

PS2 games I still need to pick up eventually (off the top of my head):
Shadow Hearts 1-3
Sega Genesis Collection (has a lot of good shit on it)
God of War 1 and 2 (waiting until I can get them for free from Sony)
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony is sending it eventually)

Xbox:
Dark Alliance 2 (coop only)
D&D Heroes (coop only)

Xbox games I still need to play:
Phantom Crash (lol, it was like $3)
The Warriors
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Dreamfall

DS/GBA:
Pokemon Emerald (finally got around to beating the core campaign, now only the Battle Frontier shit left)
Pokemon Pearl (on reserve)
Tales of Phantasia (I'll get back to it some day)

As much as I would love a 360 (Hello Armored Core 4), it would just screw me up even more

(I'm probably forgetting stuff)

Is this in a mostly-finished playable state yet?  Last I looked they were still doing beta releases.

Current games:

Tier 1:
WoW (PC)
Doom 3 (yes, still slogging through it in a state of self-flagellation and hatred) (PC)


Tier 2:
Warcraft III (PC) never played it before recently
Guitar Hero 1 & 2 (PS2)

~ big gap ~

Tier 3:
Wii Sports/Fake Bowling (Wii)
GTA San Andreas (PC)
Red Faction 2 (PC)
X-Men Legends (PS2)

Unfinished/I must get back to that sometime:
Too many to name  :cry:


Unfortunately, I also have an unhealthy number of games across the platforms sitting around where I've just played them for 1 or 2 or 3 sessions (Hitman Contracts, Splinter Cell) then never got back to or just had a quick look at them, then never got back to without even a proper attempt to play, or even worse, just sitting there untried and never installed. I think I just like buying shit a little too much. I also blame the everpresent EQWoW factor.

WoW
Defence of the Ancients
CS 1.6
Icewind Dale 2

Often:
Battlefield 2142 (PC)
C&C: Tiberium Wars (PC)

Sometimes:
Jade Empire (PC)
STALKER (PC)

Just Finished:
Okami (PS2)

Viva Pinata
Rainbow Six Vegas
Tiger Woods PGA Tour '07
NCAA Football 2007
Gears of War
Medieval II

Been trying to pick up Guitar Hero II for the 360, but alas, it looks my procrastination led to no GH2 for me.  Completely sold out in every store I've been to.

It is pretty darn playable, though the Svartalfar, Illian, and Sidar civlizations are incomplete. They don't have their special abilities implemented yet, and end up weak compared to the others.

If I was a dick, I would say that you should have reserved and that you have no excuse for not doing so.

Instead, I will say that I wish I could get ahold of one for you, but since shipping the bigass thing wouldn't be free, I doubt it'd be worth it.

Also, faulty whammy bars...or are they saying it was a driver issue now?




Also, edit to previous post: Gladius on Xbox. I'll get to it eventually.

Thief 3 (got it on Steam)
Eve (mostly mucking about with low order tech 1 items I sell in my region). Running away from Outbreak. Spending more time reading forums.
Silent Hunter 2. Waiting for news the 1.2 patch is legit.

Primary:

Lotro (Till the beta time runs out)
Stalker

Secondary:
Avernum 1 (Preparation for Avernum 4, 2 and 3 to follow)
Civ4: FfH Mod
Galciv 2: Dark Avatar
The Treasures of Montezuma (my fix until Puzzle Quest for the PC is here)
Warlords 4 (Puzzle Quest made me reinstall it)

Tertiary:
Adom
Darklands (its in my Dosbox.zip I install after every new Windows installation)
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (still have to play that last level, some day I will)
Master of Magic (like Darklands)
Nethack
Titan Quest (Racked up the Drop Rates with a Mod, it now devovled to the quick Item fix when I feel lootwhorey)

Tonight I played Make a Spreadsheet. Tomorrow I'll be playing Raiden III, if all goes according to plan.

Just playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance right now.  Last month I was mostly into God of War II and finishing up Dead Rising.  Haven't had time for much else other than that lately.

Last weekends GH2 XBL update fixed it.  My guitar bar works perfect now.  Supposedly it was the anti-piracy code causing lag or something.

WoW. 

Astro Empires.#

Advanced Windows 2003 Server Crushing Despair Simulator.

Guitar Hero II (Hard is kicking my ass), Castlevania: SotN (missed it the first time around), and finally getting my God of War II game on.

Played kill the mal/spyware on my old pc last night (six total). I think it's clean now, but going to give it some more beatings. Jumped onto EQ2 to empty my mailboxes before things disappeared on me.

When honorable PC#2 is fully functional again:
EQ2
FFvTR
maybe some SimGolf

When I get a new gpu for honorable PC#1:
EQ2
MUA
FEAR
Gothic3

Planning on getting Jade Empire, GalCiv2 Gold, maybe Stalker. Really just biding time until Spore comes out. I don't play a lot of games, mostly EQ2 these days.

Last night I played Metal Saga for a few hours.

Hmm, right now...

Jade Empire
Oblivion
Sims 2 (I can't help it)
does Party Poker count?

Raw vs Smackdown with friends over
NHL Hitz, or whatever its called on a friend's Gamecube

Oh, I installed and played a little Jedi Outcast recently - just had an urge to shoot Stormtroopers.

PC
World of Warcraft
S.T.A.L.K.E.R (In Russia, STALKER plays you)

Xbox 360
Saints Row for the second time. I really like this game.

A UO free shard. That's it currently.

What game is it then?

Edit:  Good Grief!  I think something has frazzled in my brain today!  I read that as a shard free from UO and not a free UO shard!  This is the second time I've failed reading comprehension on this forum today!  NAP!

(sorry, Nija  :?)

Go fish.

Have not been able to find much to excite me lately, could use some MMOG action but am done with diku and have heard of no interesting niche MMOG present or planned. Was a big Conan fan, read all of Howard's books years ago, but am skeptical of what depth a console enabled MMOG  can offer. Guess I still want UO "done right", fat chance of that, hah! Board surfing can be fun but the loathing of crap games and the people that play them begins to seethe.

Tried the Crackdown demo for 360 and that seems like a few hours of fun, will try to rent the game. I'd be probably playing a Mario game of some sort if I had a Nintendo machine, Paper Mario screenies make me wistful.

Am downloading the Theatre of War demo (http://www.battlefront.com/products/tow/demo.html) right now, looks neato.

I might download the re-release of Close Combat 3: "Cross of Iron" (http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=335). The Close Combat series is by far my favorite realtime strategy type games (OMG tactical RTS thats not a clickfest!). I played the heck out of CCIII back when it was originally released, solo play is ho-hum but the prospect of online play is enticing, I'm not sure if there is a decent pool of players though.

PC
Company of Heroes
EVE

360
Viva Pinata
Fight Night Round 3
RB6:LV
Gears of War
Oblivion
Dead Rising (again)

PC
Medieval Total War 2
Europa Universalis 3
Galactic Civilizations 2
Oblivion + O3 and Shivering Isles
Star Control 2 (3DO port)

Xbox 360
Viva Pinata
Psychonauts
Gears of War

PC
WoW
Dawn of War++
Company of Heroes
Installing Gothic 3 this weekend.

360
Guitar Hero 2
Gears of War
Lumines
Heavy Weapon
Earth Defense Force

PS2
FFXII
God of War 2 - Got put on hold some how.  I'm at Icarus.

Yep, enjoying Fall from Heaven 2 a lot.
Also:  Puzzle Quest (PSP)  Damn that two headed ogre was tough til I went Troll ring and Regen on him; building my empire now.
Titan Quest Expansion (sans mods; now that I can trade gear between toons without the external vault i'm enjoying altitis a bit more)
Master of Magic (though FfH2 is helping me finally stop playing this game)

Sorta playing sometimes:
GalCiv2Gold
Oblivion (just to finish up the main line eventually)
Phantom Dust (xbox)
Gladius (xbox)

What a shock; most of my games are turn based. 

I am fairly monogamous in my gameplaying- I tend to focus on one at a time. Currently WoW is taking that slot, but I am working ME II- TW back into the rotation (the Scots own the Isles as God intended atm). I really need to hook my Xbox back up and get back into WE9- I vastly preferred it over the EA FIFA offerings.

Hopefully I will have a couple more decent nights at the poker table so I can pick up an Xbox 360 Elite and GHII next month.

I'm running through Dragon Quest VIII again.  Then I'll probably go back and finish VII.  Also playing Super Mario for the DS, which is fun as hell in that old school gaming feel.

Last night... Kororinpa: Marble Madness during family-time, followed by Ar tonelico.

Seriously, fuck that computer. Needs a damned fresh XP install imo.

Got really bad motion sickness playing HL2 last night.  Nearly threw up.  Fantastic.

You are so fragile, like a nun or an aging rock star.

Have to assume you're in the buggy (or mudskipper thing).

Hey wtf? Don't make me signe you.

Yes.  That bloody hovercraft.  Horrible.

Sorry, Sister.   :oops:

Signe: 1
Sky: 0

Final Fantasy 12.

PC
LOTR Beta (still not sure if I'll pick up)
Star Wars Empire at War

360
Nothing...goddam machine gave me the red lights of death.  Had one week of warranty left though.
Gotta ship it back to Bill so he can fix.  VERY disappointed.

Tonight, more Ar tonelico, now that I have verified my new corp laptop can connect to the VPN.  Also installed powercalc and tweakui on my machine here, so I guess I'm also playing WinXP a little.

Last week or so, Killjoy came to visit... actually he just stayed overnight because he came into the ATL to see Mike Patton.  Anyway, I had to show him where the katana and submachine gun were in Dead Rising... and that you can restart and keep your PP.  Suddenly he goes from "bleh, it sucks" to "BEST GAME EVER!!!" so I am almost playing vicariously through him now.  He called me four times today to jabber about Dead Rising, something about a clown with tiny chainsaws that blocks bullets and new uses for the lead pipe.  I almost wish he would get a job.

Mike Patton?  Like in Faith No More?  I can relate to the clown with tiny chainsaws, though.  I am related to one of those.

Faith No More, yes.  Killjoy loves that motherfucker.

Can you block bullets?  If so, PM me.

When you're ready, you won't have to.

Well you can rest assured that you are apparently in the 3 - 5% that have experienced a failure. As was I.

Oh and don't worry about when your warranty expires. If it's an Xbox 360 and it has red rings they'll replace it. For some reason they're a little sensitive to that...

Same here, got mine in Jan and it gave me the ring in march. (yep we are a couple now) Sure seems like more then 3-5% but whatever, didn't cost me a dime to fix thankfully. As to games.

Diablo LoD. Playing with my bro is always fun be it Diablo or...

WC3. Man this game was worth every penny and them some. I almost never run out of maps to play. Be it DotA, or a nice RPG like The Black Road.

Still waiting on the DLC for marvel ult alliance. Was suposed to be out the 10th.
Mostly just waiting on something new to grab me tho. I blew through C&C3 in like a week, was hoping it would hold my attention longer. Also Titan Quest. Picked up the expack, it held my interest for a couple weeks I'm done with it now. Just doesn't have the Fun of Diablo.

I was eyeing GTA: Vice City last night for some nostalgia gaming. Played guitar instead.

They have that combo pack now that has GTAIII/VC/SA in one box.

I meant the one I dug out of my cd piles and is sitting on my coffee table ;) My girl liked GTA:SA mostly because of the humor and music, but she's never seen VC and she's a huge 80s music fan. They've been playing Miami Vice commercials a lot lately...

The old pc is still crashing infrequently, so I'll probably have to reinstall winders first...

LotRO Beta
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Esp.Rade, and due to Yegolev's insistance, I bought Rainbow 6 Vegas. I suppose I can play with NiX as a result of that.

Oh, and Valhalla Knights. I'll be starting that tonight. I fear it.

Animal Crossing (DS).  Strangely enough, this game has everything I wanted from WoW without the annoying people.

I'm having trouble finding other DS games that I think I would like, though.  Last game I played before AC was Hotel Dusk.

You'll probably enjoy Harvest Moon, particularly Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. Also, Puzzle Quest.

...I'm enjoying Pokemon Pearl. Not gonna lie.

Playing the FUCK out of Super Mario World.
Also more Kororinpa, it's not deep but fun for now.
Super Paper Mario.
Ar tonelico.

On the horizon: Arx Fatalis.  Why?  The version I can get on Steam, it actually works.

OOOOOO, you opened it early. I'm Telling Mom!

Today?  Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga.  Progress has slowed due to occasional hangs, but I'm pushing through it.

I have been on the final boss of DDS 2 since 2 weeks after it's release. I grinded badly.

But I enjoyed EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

Never finished it.


I'd probably upset you with the things I haven't finished or that are lying dormant.

Pffft. I should denote STATUS in my spreadsheets. In fact, yes. Doing that.

I almost never finish anything.  I did, however, finish Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate.  I think that's it.  Mostly.

WOW - on Dath'Remar these days...my bf made me roll up a Blood Elf because he likes the pretty characters...also, he gets annoyed if I make a female character :P  Too bad f13 can never all end up on one server ㅠㅠ

Also a little CIV IV and some Sims 2...

I play the LOTRO beta sporadically, but haven't felt motivated to log in lately...needs a cooler pet class...

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Haven't dusted off the PS2 in ages.

What did I do this time?

PC:
Playing WoW a bit, though I'm getting bored around level 35 like I did the last two times I subbed...
EU3 every now and then, but after a certain point every country starts to feel the same.

PS2:
Guitar Hero I and just recently borrowed II from a friend - The song selection on II blows  :-P

Thinking about picking up Shadow of the Colossus or getting a DS.

Someone needs to start a 'Looking Forward To' thread.

Get both.


Yes.

Spooky, I'm on Dath'Remar these days too, although I'm playing Aussie time zone.

And since I've finally got round to posting on this thread, I unsubbed to Vanguard and am enjoying the lootfest that is Titanquest.

I'm seriously tempted to resub to EQ2 but may well buy a copy of LOTRO.

Hmm...Aussie time zone.

You do recall that I work in Korea, right?

I normally play 9pm AEST but have been bitten by the TitanQuest bug lately.  I only have a 44 Human Priest (Vaede) so I'm not up to anything actually useful.

That game is full of Marrow.

I traded in Rainbow 6. Actually I traded in a shitton of 360 games. Why? Extra 10 dollars for 2. And an extra 20% bucks on top of that that. I had both Pokemons and about 5 other games paid for. In fact, I almost broke even on about half of it.

I don't know how people can like Rainbow Six. The guns are boring dogshit.

I am told that R6V is all about the multi, and I am just getting it to play something with a friend that lives in Charlotte.  Normally I would not be assed to even look at something like that, especially on a console.

What really happened this weekend, gamewise, was:
Super Mario World, I worked to get the secret exit from Butter Bridge into Soda Lake and shortly Mario was standing in front of Bowser's castle.
Digital Devil Saga, I am still on the boat and I seem to have isolated what causes the crash: fighting in the grey metal areas.  Huzzah!
Dead Rising, made lv16, found some vehicles, ran over maybe one thousand zombies before Frank was once again eaten alive.  Excavator!
Arx Fatalis.  I forgot how much I loved this game, but of course I'm not at the buggy section yet.  The Steam version is 1.18 so I am hoping they fixed a lot more than just the texture problems.  Stupid JoWood.

Yeah, Arx was a great game. I could never fix the FoV problem with 16:9 to really enjoy it, though. I think I was the only person in the widescreen community playing it when it came out :|

I installed Planescape on the (P3 crappy) laptop and got into it for an hour on Sunday but then it crashed.

Ah, so you're dirty Alliance :P

My characters on Dath so far are all Horde-type.  I think the bf has a little Gnome Mage he tools around on sometimes, but it's quite low-level.  I haven't rolled any ally chars yet to join him on that one.  Besides, I'd probably end up being a hunter again if I wanted to fight through the Alliance side and it would be quite a while before I'd catch up to your level ~sigh~

Picked up Europa Universalis III over the weekend. I think I will have enough time to learn how to play it properly when I retire. Jeebus.

Yeah, I started playing a little EU III and just felt totally lost.  So I uninstalled.  I'm too lazy to read War and Peace size manuals to figure out a game these days.

I assume it's tougher than GalCiv2?

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about Harvest Moon.  I'll check it out.

I was really interested in Puzzle Quest from all the talk in the other thread.  But it hasn't come out yet, so I ordered Warcraft III instead.  So uh, I guess I'll be playing that too in a few days.  I'll probably pick up Puzzle Quest when it gets cheaper and I get bored.

I'm playing Pearl now as well. It's very good.

Red Steel (wii) its actually way better than the reviews gave it, although the targeting system can get annoying sometimes.

I am also continuing work on my morpg, and between that and school, all my time gets eaten up pretty fast.

Yes. Once I started playing this, I really couldn't focus on any other game - though I have been loaned about ten other games for ps2 (that's right, I'm too cheap to buy my own). FFXII is the only ps2 game I actually own, which is fine by me. 20 hours in and still have plenty to go.

Though I wonder if anyone here might know about this - a friend of mine told me that when he played FFX, he actually put effort into staying low level so that bosses were easier to beat. He just went potion-crazy. Anyone know if XII is the same way?

FFXII does not work like that as far as I know.  Only 180 hours into it, though.

So far it's like the old FF's for me.  You can out-level the boss encounter.

180?  Is it really that long that 'only 180' is an apt descriptor for indicating barely begun familiarization?

I think I beat it at around 70-80 hours in.  And this was with out leveling the end boss by a decent margin.  I spent a lot of time goofing off and getting things wrong.

I had done a good amount of sidequestage also.  A hundred percent completion should run 100 hours plus, which would include getting all of the summons, finishing both hunt lines, and any available side quest. 

180 hours seems a tad excessive. 

I have a feeling he leaves the game running while unattended. That's the only way I can think of that you could accumulate 180+ hours of gameplay.

How do you guys play more than one game at a time? I can't stand switching games until they're done (or I tire of them).

Anyway, here's my "list":

WoW

Hello, I'm Yegolev, nice to meet you.  Everything I post is implicitly green.

Seriously though, I actually do have over 180 hours clocked in FFXII, sidequests and hunts and such, and I have not detected any sort of level adjustment on boss monsters.  My alpha squad is around lv 60 and my last excursion into the endgame (Bahamut) was easy as pie, although I have not encountered a boss in there yet.


I guess it's like those guys with eleven wives.  I just like to whore around.  I get bored, or most of the time I am distracted by New Shiny.  Example: if I don't finish Ar tonelico before Atelier Iris 3 arrives in May, I am probably not going to ever finish it.  I am able to execise a little restraint, such as limiting myself to just one Shin Megami Tensei game at a time or limiting my vs-fighter time to just Virtua Fighter 5.  Furthermore, everything I am listing now is going to be swept aside once October arrives, regardless of the completion state.

Last night I finally left the ship in SMT: Digital Devil Saga.  I did so because my wife wanted to see the cutscenes before she went to sleep, but I had just found a super-nice area to level.
Played a little Super Paper Mario yesterday, too.

This weekend was super-whore-time.  In no real order, from Friday to now:
Gears of War (restart)
Sam + Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die
UNO (XBLA)
Super Mario World
Ar tonelico
God of War II
Various Wii Sports
Various Wii Play
Kororinpa
F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. is awesome.

I am not counting the demo of Symphony of the Night, although I did play some of it, since I did not put any more time into it than it took to see that is was not worth spending any money on.

Buddy got a 360 on Friday. We finished Gears of War on the Hardcore difficulty yesterday. Very fun game. We'll get around to Insane eventually.


As an aside...this game has to have some of The most gratifying sniper rifle kills...ever.

God of war 2 is kicking my ass right now; I just spent 2 hours trying and failing to beat Theseus on titan mode. I'm also playing fallout 2 and have rogue galaxy somewhere in the back to finish.

I picked up GRAW II.  If you liked the first one as much as I did, do yourself a favor and pick this up.  It's very cinematic and although the storyline is pretty cheesy the presentation is top notch.  I never played the first one much online but I'm thinking some co-op would be fun if anyone is down.

Fallout 2 with an occasional WoW instance.  Had just about the worst Black Morass group ever tonight.  First time I've ever seen a mage get owned trying to do adds.

Fallout 2 is just awesome on a stick.  Had to restart so I could play with that fixpack someone recommended.  Shooting people in the head never gets old in that game. I don't even notice the graphics. 

Aside: I don't think my wife can tell the difference between the games I play anymore.  They're all just WoW.  Course.. it could be just a knock against WoW graphics in relation to F2.  :-D


I don't get why people like that game. Seemed just so very ordinary.  :| 

You resubbed to WoW.... AGAIN?

JOIN THE DARK SIDE!

WOW IS LOVE!

COME TO DATH'REMAR HORDE!

~cough, cough~  Sorry about that.  I'm ok now.  Must be the yellow dust.

I could say the same about WoW.  But the things I like about F.E.A.R. from my initial exposure is the atmosphere and how well it controls.  It is actually scary and I appreciate that.  I like the enemy jabber as well, it's pretty entertaining.  I also like to think of it as Blood 2 so that I can finally end the nightmares.  Damn Monolith.

I'm still playing through FEAR, though I think I'm getting toward the end now (I've been playing on and off since Feb, I'm the slowest gamer evar). I like the creepy atmosphere, but mostly the weapons and the enemy AI. Playing through the same area a few times is always a little different depending on the tactics you use, though there is some scripted stuff. For single-player fps, it's right behind Far Cry in my book (though for me the trigens ruined Far Cry's great jungle merc game).

So my current list now that honorable #1 pc is up and running again:

FEAR
EQ2
Jade Empire (SO much nicer than the xbox version! Thanks Bioware!)
MUA

I've got X3, Guild 2, and Gothic 3 on deck. No idea when I'll have time to play them. Also have bundled copies of Dark Messiah M&M and GRAW that I haven't opened. At some point planning on getting 1701AD, almost grabbed that instead of JE.

At least in the demo, I HATE HATE HATE the squad AI. It's terrible. I'd be better off doing all the missions solo.

There are squadmates in F.E.A.R.?

No.

Sorry, I meant GRAW2.

Oh, Sunday night I played UNO and Hexic or whatever it is called.  I have no excuse for my behavior.

I will admit that I downloaded the 10 day free trial for burning crusade (mostly because it lets me play with my inactive WoW account) I doubt if I will spend the money for the full thing.  The 10 days is about up and I've only logged in twice.

The concept of MMO's appeals to me, the actual thing kind of leave me wanting though.

Just picked up F.E.A.R.  Great great fun, despite the graphics being a bit...ordinary?  Guess I'm spoiled by GoW.  The sound effects are awesome splendid.  More than a few hair raising effects with surround sound.  One of the guns sounds like the automatic rifles used in Aliens  :thumbs_up:

As an aside:  Everytime I start up my 360 with FEAR in the tray, it gives me the message 'The disk is unreadable' message, saying it's dirty.  It's NOT dirty, it's frakin' spotless.  Kind of weird/n00b question, but is my 360 about to take a dump? 

I suppose the smart thing to do would be to test other games...

Finally cracked open GoW2.

Why didn't you just post in the "What're You Playin'" thread? Lazy, I tell you.

I am playing my own sordid version of Oregon Trail, wherein I battle ticks, solar radiation poisoning and dehydration, and try to avoid unfriendly locals who want to shoot me off their property unless I flirt or cry. My cowboy hat usually functions as +1 Stealth versus Rednecks, but sometimes those fuckers roll a 20, and the red tail hawk feather in my hat gives me away as some liberal biologist-type. I also sometimes end up with the ailment of "some spiny thing in my boot", "some wet squishy thing in my boot" or hafta dirt-ski down a 45-degree slope to save myself an extra half mile of hiking, which often results in said ailments. Fortunately, I have immunity to poison oak and bee stings. On the plus side, I'm only like 100 xp away from another ding.

And that 100 xp should be an easy grind if you just stick or orcs or goblins...but good luck if you run into a bear instead.  :-D

That is why GRAW sits unopened. I may not ever bother with it. I have a couple of those games for xbox, too. My dad loves 'em. One was 720p, so a friend and I loaded it up one day and tried to play. I do not understand how people can stand that kind of retard AI gameplay. It's like they couldn't give you soldiers, so they suited up some guys on a shortbus. My dislike for AI is fairly well-explained elsewhere in these forums, though. It's a crime how far graphics have come with AI still being the level of a drooling moron. AI is /hard/.

My breaking point on squad AI was Medal of Honor: AA. The one where the brit I was escorting kept shooting me in the back trying to hit nazis beyond me, then when I moved, he ran out into the yard and got cut down by the nazis I was trying to clear from cover, ending the mission. Like 20 times, every time a failed mission because of his shitty AI (and of course, the nazis are eagle-eyed sharpshooters that could see me anywhere even without LoS to return fire).

No, give me a KotOR-style (or Freedom Force, or any other decent team-based game), where I can pause and queue up everyone's actions. Even XML/MUA has the occasional "Oh, look...Wolverine just jumped off a cliff to his death" kind of stupidity. Hey Wolvie, Magneto can fly, you can't.

But I love dirt-skiing. We used to descend from some peaks we liked to rockclimb by skiing down a talus ravine.

Cheating enemy AI bugs me almost as much as bad team AI.

I hate how it didn't matter how much I snuck around, how quiet I was, how out of the way I went, the damn Mexicans in GRAW knew EXACTLY where I was going to pop up. There was NO flanking in that game imo

Last night, Twilight Princess.  Almost played Link to the Past, but I had already bothered to go get the the TP disc.

Also some UNO after I set up music streaming on the 360.  Played a couple rounds to something by Jon Hallur.  Now I guess I am going to have to rip, rip, rip.  So long, PS3 music tracks!

You'll regret it!  :-P Just wait until fall, then you can stream music from your virtual, microtransaction paid Sony stereo within Home. In AAC and not that WMA shit.

...


Actually, I don't even have tracks on my PS3. Well, just one track: TV Casualty by the Misfits.

Everything else on my PS3 hard drive are ripped vids of TV shows (naturally). Music streams from my Mac. The way it should be.

Meh, why would I do that with the PS3 in the fall when I can do that with my 360 now?  Ironically, I don't expect to have much in the way of storage issues with the PS3 but I'm picking my poison early.  Perhaps just in time since it seems our 300-disc player is on its last legs.

I'm playing:

PC: Fallout 1, Fallout 2, then Planescape: Torment. Earlier this year I did the whole Baldur's Gate series so this should complete my goal of experiencing all the old school awesome PC RPGs.

Console: Madden 07 (though I'm quickly getting bored of it), Rainbox Six Vegas (same), Crackdown (bored of it too) and a few old XBOX games I never beat the first time around. I've put aside Rogue Galaxy for a couple of months now and need to get back to it, but the story started boring me.

Wait, what?  Do you mean that it's not worth paying money for Symphony of the Night again, or just not worth money at all?

I was kidding (mentioning microtransactioned virtual Sony steroes should have given that away). I don't care about music playback on consoles myself.

[EDIT] Wait a second. What are you talking about exactly? Streaming from PC? Or just ripping songs on to the console's hard drive? If that's the case, both consoles do the same thing. There is no "waiting until fall" for that.

Could be...  As the proud owner of a refurbished 360 (since I've had to go through the send it back for repairs bullshit) I no longer keep games in the drive.  I always make sure there's nothing in the tray before I shut it off, and I haven't run into any more problems.  Superstition?  Me being ultra-paranoid?  Probably, but the 360's hardware sucks enough that I'm taking no chances.

Really, for so much that MS has done well this gen (and I do think that this is the system to own right now) they've absolutely shit the bed on hardware quality.  Worse is that they won't acknowledge the problems.  Meanwhile in bizarro-land, it looks like Sony's got a pretty solid system, hardware-wise.

I already have a nice, shiny SotN blackdisc and a machine to play it on... so, the first one.  The 360 version doesn't appear to warrant $10, as I believe it only received a graphical update.  If there was some more gameplay (which would be kinda ridiculous in a good way) then I would probably buy it.  I bought Ninja Gaiden twice so far, after all.


Yes.  I see no reason to halfass the job and try to rip music to a console that won't hold what I'm packing.  Or just because I can potentially fill them up with game shit instead of music shit.  I have several CDs ripped to my PS3 right now, actually.  My PC, it has plenty of space now (734GB) and can expand a whole lot since it only has four disks, one of which is 80GB.  Seems to make sense.

As for why, I can listen to my music in the living room instead of my office.

Ah, yes, what I am playing....

Last night I racked up just over 20,000 zombie kills in Dead Rising before I had to go to bed.  It's every man for himself, bitches!

I so want Dead Rising.

I must buy myself a wee xbox.

Every time I decide to play Dead Rising, the crappy saving system does me in and it goes back onto the shelf.

Dead Rising is that good? Maybe I should go out and buy it so that I have it at hand when the Elite arrives in Europe.

Dead Rising is that good only if you like driving a lawnmower over zombies, or running them down in a car, or slicing them in half with a katana, or using wrestling moves on them, or sticking a shower head in the top of their skulls and watching them bleed to death comically, or knocking them over with a bowling ball, or impaling them with a lead pipe so that they bleed to death, or putting a bucket/traffic cone/novelty mask over their heads and kicking them down stairs, or lopping their heads off with a sickle, or cutting them in half with a chainsaw, or putting a red-hot frying pan on their faces.  As for the excavator, I can't even describe that one.  There is also a plot that Man's Man Journalist, Frank West, must uncover.

I finally got around to getting one of the endings last night, the "Frank is looking out for Number One ending", after killing nearly 54,000 zombies.  This happens to unlock the Real Mega Buster, which works much better than the toy version.

I also forgot to mention in my last post that I played Sneak King on the 360, starting over since my previous files are on the Xbox.

I don't have a problem with the Dead Rising save system, unless you mean that it is in fact a urinal.  On the contrary, I love it.  Killjoy did not like the game until I explained how it works, after which he became obsessed with it.  He admitted that he should have read the manual or perhaps just the menu after he died.

Edited for clarity.

I have what I'm playing + a retarded backlog.

DS: Puzzle Quest...again.  I can't put this title down.
PC: Vampire the Masquerade (Though I'm tempted to do Company of Heroes...for a third time).  Got done with Immortal Throne.
360: Dead Rising (Still in the packaging...really need to get this), Crackdown (100 Agil orbs to go) and I probably should 100% Lego Star Wars
PS2:  I need to finish Final Fantasy (~40 hours in), God of War (Almost done...Athena?) and Dragon Quest VIII (~30 hours in).  I also have Diseaga 2 (which is so deep it scares me), Okami and ICO sitting unplayed + more that are  :nda: as I'm embarrassed to say I haven't played them.  (The PS2 catalog was bought on the cheap so I have massive amounts of catchup to do.)

Zombies ?  Some mistake, surely.

It's more of the 7 inches of shower head pipe stuck in the top of their head.  Just so happens, while they're dying, blood sprays from the shower head.

Think it's more of a 'dammit, died again... now I have to do all that OVER again. It also doesn't help that I'm pretty terrible at Dead Rising for some reason.

I appreciated the fact that you can keep your PP and even clothing because it gave me hope of finishing one day.  The problem is that you can't make easy progress along the storyline until you are at least level 20.  I just started trying to solve the cases and I'm level 32.  The Real Mega Buster is near cheating, it's almost as bad as the Alucard Shield.  If you want to put in some time driving over zombies, I can give you a simple route to do that.  Once you smash 53,594 of the fuckers, you just have to get an ending that doesn't involve you being eaten and that is as simple as standing on the helipad until noon on Sept 22.

There is still a lot of fun to be had in just beating up on the zombies with whatever you have handy, for me at any rate.

My free copy of Shadow of the Colossus arrived from Sony a few days ago...

Another title to add to the pile.

I cannot remember what level it was, but once I got the Hammer Throw move, Dead Rising got a lot easier.  Knee Drop didn't hurt either.

I thought the whole point of Dead Rising is that you just keep playing through, gaining abilities, until you can finally beat it? Sounds wicked, one of the games that really tempts me. Going to be hard when GTA4 ships, imo. And now my frakkin DAD is considering the Elite 360. Dammit. You'd think he'd consider getting one for his only progeny on earth, but nooo. And he has a newer 1080p DLP. Dammit.

Wait, what?

Yeah, that's how I go at it.  Laugh at your death and restart, skip the cutscenes and get back to work.

I have a hard time with the hammer throw and the suplex unless I catch them unawares otherwise I end up doing the lift, but the knee drop is good when I can pull it off.  The double lariat seems to get me killed.  Getting better at the roundhouse kick, too, which is pretty useful right after a jump kick.  For my money, the jump kick is the best move; easy to perform and lets you go anywhere, even more than the zombie walk most of the time.

I'm more of a Engineering Book+lead pipe/2x4 kinda guy, but now I have the Mega Buster for tight spots.

I hate the couple frames of vulnerability after the jump kick though.  Sometimes when I jump into a crowd of zombies, and don't get them all with the Jump/Round combo,  I get unwanted hugs.

The lift is pretty good too, just sometimes the crowd is so thick, they hit you before you can chuck your lifted.

Double lariat gets me murdered.  It's good on the specOps guys though.

I am on the 24 hour mode at the moment.  (for months actually)  I need to fire it back up so I can get to the real game, survival mode.  I just hated the errand runs, and ended up not playing.  I should get the real mega-buster.  Most of my boss murdering comes from the sledge hammer, the semi-stun you get from a good hit, saves your life.  Carlito, the priest, hardware redneck, and the grocery warrior can't handle the sledge.

GH2 is all I have been playing lately.  It makes me forget about everything else for an hour.

The Mega Buster, it one-shots Carlito.  I mean, I popped him once with it and suddenly he's on his little rope to the ceiling, no intervening asshattery behind the shop signs.  Same with the prisoners, although I still grabbed the minigun off the hummer since, well, it's a fucking minigun (killed that girl I was trying to save with it, oops, that thing is hard to control sometimes).  Also, the Mega Buster holds 300 rounds.  Get the MegaMan helmet to go with it and you'll be laughing your way to victory.

I restarted once at lv. 7 and then proceeded to play all the way through the game.  The most important thing to remember is that Columbia Roastmasters is pretty close to the exit of the warehouse and has an unlimited supply of OJ and a Katana on the awning.  The second most important thing to remember is that you can give people you're escorting weapons (and they won't run out of ammo and the weapons won't break).  Give them a shotgun (especially if you only have a few shots left with it) or a Katana or something and they can actually be pretty helpful at times.

It is terribly out of character for me, but I just have no interest in mixing drinks in Dead Rising.  But yeah, nectar is really easy to get.

Did you use the books and such?  It's certainly possible to play the game at a low level but jeez!  Aside from that, my biggest problem has been that I like to stop listening to Otis and just kill zombies, which isn't terribly helpful in making progress.

So, last night Dead Rising, I think, and a little Ar tonelico, and a little Super Mario World.  A little bit of Twilight Princess, too, or what my son calls Big Zelda.  Link to the Past is Little Zelda.  Tonight, going to be humiliated in multiplayer R6:Vegas.

You don't need to mix drinks.  A gallon of OJ fills up pretty much all of your health at low levels and even at high levels it fills up a lot.  At Columbian Roast Masters, you can just keep grabbing gallons of OJ off the shelf (it's kind of a little cooler type thing kind near the counter and by the window).

I pretty much never used books.  Sometimes I'd turn on the game and mess around killing zombies, running them down in cars, and playing with weapons, but I wouldn't usually save the game after.


Edit:  Regardless though, there isn't really a wrong way to play through this game.  If you want to restart a lot, go around killing zombies, and not really try to make your way through the cases until you're a higher level, there's certianly no problem with that.

Heh.  What did the Alucard Shield do again?  Symphony of the Night, right?

I just remember always telling myself I wouldn't go to the reverse library and farm up the Crissaegrim (the weapon that spit a rain of blades in front of you slaughtering everying)  and I'd find myself doing it EVERY TIME.

When you use the Shield Rod and Alucard Shield at the same time, the shield turns into a death vortex that soul drains anything you block with it. This includes shield-ramming the major bosses.

--GF

I am now playing Belle's Beauty Boutique.  This minute.

F.E.A.R. after Schilds recommendation about a year ago I believe. Awesome. Only game to ever make me say "Oh fuck you" in response to being scared out of my skull. Damn fine jump scenes.

Finished God of War 2 and Fallout 2 today.  I have to say, the end of God of War 2 was a disappointment.  The last fight was just lame. No way this game gets a GOTY nod from me.  Everything they added to the game I disliked.  I'd rank it a full point lower than God of War 1 on 10 point scale.   :|

Fallout 2 holds up over time.  That was totally worth the replay. 

Now what to do?  Need a WoW break, hit the burn-out wall head on rather suddenly.  Perhaps Shadow Hearts 3.

Shadow Hearts 3 isn't going to help much.

This week is weak for releases. Very weak. But the following week has a few solid portable titles and Monster Madness for the 360. And then things really start to pick up.

After getting enough time in Rainbow Six: Vegas to figure it out, I can say that the singleplayer is booooring and the multi is fun.  Even when I am playing with actual military guys; it helps that they are all decent players that never toss a grenade when we have agreed to stick to pistols.

More Ar tonelico, and it's starting to get a bit dull with the incredible on-rails play... that unlocks dresses.

I ended up checking out my girlfriend's gametap account and falling in love with Might and Magic IV Clouds of Xeen.  I think I'm going to have to sub up and finish M&M IV and V.  They just don't make RPGs like that anymore. 

I was quite impressed with Gametap too.  Looks like there are quite a few games I'd actually play.  Not that I have the time... but why not throw more on the pile.

I completely finished Disgaea 1 for the 2nd time.  Yay!

Gametap, it's good just for the new Sam + Max games.  Also has Planescape and X-COM.

Got almost to the end of FFXII last night.  I trashed The Undying, being level 69 means YAWN.  Anyway, my son cried out during the final cinematic and I just put down the controller to go check on him, not remembering that I can pause cutscenes.  While I am going up the stairs, my wife tries to pause it and somehow manages to reboot the PS3.  We watched the ending on YouTube.  I had started it up again and was about to do some more hunts, but then I remembered where they all are.  Fuck that tower.  I think it's time for Shadowhearts 2.

More Ar tonelico after that, and R6V earlier in the day.

I finally got around to finishing La Pucelle Tactics. Finally, I can play something else.

I liked most of the game, except for the character advancement system - I hate when important systems like this are handled "under the hood." Also, except for healing and ATK buffs, magic was useless in this game. Useless. Oh well.

Just got my 360, been playing Dead Rising, NHL2k7 and Gears of War.

After reading this thread, I think I'll try the run around and kill zombies for xp then restart approach and get some levels. Silly me had this idea that I would sneak up on Carlito and he would drop when I shot him. Uh, no. Helps that I finally figured out which button skips the cinematics.

GoW is a pretty cool shooter, though that stupid beserker at the end of level one is pissing me off. Wouldn't be so bad if I could save part way through. It would also help if I didn't suck at shooters.

NHL2k is love. What the hell made me think that EA hockey had to be better becuase it was more expensive?

NHL2k7 with the control stick would of been the bomb-diggity.

Watch out for Prom Night.

NHL2k7 is pure hockey bliss. It's the first real hockey video game I have even liked since NHL 99 on PSone.

Bunk, head up north to the hardware store.  Crislip's.

Metal Saga.  Paid 20,000 for a tank, found out it was an anti-aircraft tank.  Four main guns but can only put AA on there?  Bleh.  Still, I think I will fit it out with AA and tow it around for emergencies.

I'm playing Star Wars: Rebellion. It's like Star Wars: Total War if that possibly existed, which would freaking rule. But they just let it die and never picked it up again to improve it. That's one of the things I'd remedy if I were running Lucasarts, but what can you do.

Most people I know hated that game with a burning passion.  I liked it a lot, however.  One of those games where you pause to look up and it's 4am.

It was called Supremacy over here and I liked it a lot.

I'm now playing Dream Day Wedding.  It's very sweet.  (http://www.oberongames.com/DreamDayWedding.asp)

I might have to buy it so I can unlock the Tropical Honeymoon level.   :-)

I figured you more for....

http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu/~lee/deanimator.html (http://artscool.cfa.cmu.edu/~lee/deanimator.html)

Being a zombie and all.

Goddamn, that is gorgeous. The HP shit, not the Wedding shit.

Now I'm playing that, too.

And I'm not a zombie! 

Dammit.

Convincing.

I'm playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2 all night...

...on my arcade machine.

WOOOOOOO.

Finally got my DS back (after what must have been over a year).

Late to the party and all that, but I can finally play AW Dual Tactics for hundreds of hours, the way it was meant to be.


Picked up Ultimate Jump on a lark as well. This seems like a badass game (think SSB with 300 Jump characters -- I mean, everything from Hokuto to Slam Dunk to Naruto to Death Note to DB to Kenshin), but the language barrier is intimidating. I'm going to have to put a lot of time into learning it.

[EDIT]

Also got Calling All Cars, though i said I wasn't going to do it.

It's pretty fun actually.

Ironically, I returned Ultimate Jump Stars after the language barrier stared me in the face.

GameFAQs looks to have a decent walkthrough that translates things for English speakers. If that doesn't work out, then I'll probably do the same as you. Damn shame really, but I couldn't resist at least trying to give it a shot.

For about four days I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  Last night I started a new game of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Now I'm playing the demo of Mini Golf Adventures.  It's pretty splenda.  I may only play demos from now on.  I have so much to choose from and they're very cheap.  I need cheap right now.  I just spent 5K on furniture during a whimsical moment.   :oops:  My new sofa is made from bomber jackets!   :lol:

Mine is made from Doritos. I think.

You are not allowed to sit on my new sofa, you smelly boy you.

Final Fantasy Tactics.

My wife asked me what Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War is.  I said "PSP."
"Do you know anything about it?"
"I don't have a PSP."
"You're a looooser."

Later she pointed out that Mustadio is related to Balthier, or at least has the same last name.

10 free days of WoW.

It took about 30 minutes for me to remember why I quit.

 :nda:

Eating ALL my gaming time, basically. I don't remember the last time I had a six hour gaming session, at least nine or eight years. Crazy.

I have totally ditched both my  :nda:'s for a demo of Mahjongg.

Did you suddenly age 40 years and not tell anyone?

I'd need Mahbongg to play that.

You are so cute, I could just pinch you. 

More Final Fantasy Tactics, right now I'm rolling with two white mages until one of them is ready to switch to oracle or something.  God, FFT Advance sucked.  Heading to the Rat Cellar tonight.

Listen, I know the pinch would just be a distraction and then you'd eat my brain. You're fooling nobody!

Started playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS.  Best.  DS.  Game.  Ever.  It has actually supplanted Final Fantasy Tactics.  Will be doing a writeup.

Today I discovered that Phantom Dust works in the 360, so I have once again begun a new game.

Spent all day pretty much playing just Dead Rising. It proves one thing right: killing zombies never gets old.

Having a lot of fun with the new 360.  Lego Star Wars demo was highly amusing. 

Also been playing Saint's Row (not bad) and yah.. still some WoW.

Hopefully, in two days I'll be playing Odin Sphere.

How bad is that no save in dungeon bit? I think I'm too old to deal with that sort of stuff now.

I will be honest here, this game is hard.  Fortunately, it is fun as well.  It's like playing Fate but the game will occasionally punch you in the balls.  You can either walk to town to rest and save (so it is easier than Nethack) or use a warp wire, which is 100 monies and one-way.  There is some grinding when you encounter special enemies called F.O.E.s, which is an acronym for something retarded, since they will probably kill one or two of your group and that guy does not get the big XP from the win, so you would want to be totally prepared with a leveled and balanced team.  You will also have to get back to town to resurrect the fallen, in the early game at least.

There are also the "eat this fruit?" moments and you may get a small bonus, a small penalty, or a group of monsters beyond your ability to fight might jump you.

Yes! I am gettin' a DS too - two actually one for me and Bro'. Trying to figure out, besides Pokemon, what would be a great two player co-op game.

Currently I am playing the Puzzle Quest demo...too addictive, Sims 2: Seasons, DOTA and a little LOTRO here and there. I am waiting for Crackdown for the XBoX 360 to go on sale though, but I might get Halo 3 instead when it comes out.

I have been eye-ing something to replace BF2142 though.

Saints Row is amazing - I hope they do a sequel!

After I had quit Wow a long while back I found I had time to play a ton of different things. :P

I'm still playing Doom3: Rez of Evil. In very small, self-hating chunks. I'm not sure why, I'm not even fucking enjoying it and I have a ton of other games to play instead. At least I finished the main game. I'll finish this Doom 3 experience it if it kills me.

When not doing that, I'm playing incredibly token-small amounts of WoW, ranging from like an hour a day, to 10 minutes, to not at all. I was playing some WC3, but it's not super-fun so I stopped. Got stuck on that sucky "go get the Titan" mission in Dawn of War: Winter Assault, so I stopped that as well.

I've been buying an average of 1-4 new games per week lately, but I can't bring myself to install any of them on my computer since I'll be getting my new one in a couple of weeks. Even though I could finish a couple of those games before then, I'm making myself play shitty shitty Doom 3 to get it finished, even though I can only make myself play like 15 minutes at a time max.

My what-I-am-playing shows an incredible amount of self-loathing. I guess it's to make the new box all that much more funner.

I don't know many DS co-op games but I also don't know anyone else with a DS.  Animal Crossing comes to mind.

Now I'm playing Pirates! the updated version.

Oh.  This isn't month 5.   :oops:  I like how no one even bothered to correct me.  I had to find out on my own!  Bastards.  I'm tired of demos.  I guess I'll just sit in a dark basement and eat worms for a month.

More and more Dead Rising.  Those convicts in the park combined with the crappy save system is making for some bullshit.

I may start over again since I just found the location of the katana.  Or... I could try and make it back on my own and let those Japanese tourists become zombie food.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, DS Air (a neat flight sim which I just found out about), and the Tony Hawk game have co-op.  Don't know how good they are, but they sound like rentals to me.

Just got my 360 too, fun as hell.  Dead Rising rules hard, I love killing me some zombies. 

I'm also playing Tiger Woods 07, which I suck at so far. +56 in my first 4-day tourney, still not sure how I made ANY cuts. I played some Call of Duty 3 online last night, too.  "It proves one thing right: killing zombies and Nazis never gets old."

Pick "start new game" instead of "reload from save", that adds fun instead of takes it away.  Unless you are trying to do the missions, that is, but who wants to do that?


Fuck those tourists.  There's a SMG to the left of the katana, jump onto the blue awning from the steps closest to the security room, go past the stuffed bear.  In the beginning area, you are getting the shotgun, right?  Shotgun kills asshole convicts dead, take down the gunner then driver... then take the minigun off the back of the hummer.  You don't want any Japanese tourists around when you get that thing.

It is month five, Goddammit!  What aren't you people telling me my brain is fucking up???  I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW! 

Umm... anyway... I'll be playing this later.   :oops: 

On the twenty-second night of the fifth month, I played Okami.

I just booted Odin Sphere and it had sex with my eyes.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh. Should have waited for the 1080p upgrade ya bastage.

Fuck you, I need eye sex.  But yes, in fact I shut it down so my wife can watch.  Back to Etria!

Ah, OK.  Odin Sphere last night.  The game, it tends to overload my brain, I think.  I don't know how many of you have a big problem with overstimulation, but I do and it is why I can't remember much from my first three trips to Walt Disney World.  My brain shuts down when innundated with too much information.  I can ignore things pretty easily, but just like a large, colorful and exciting theme park, I don't want to ignore one single detail of Odin Sphere.  Results were that my brain pretty much went into shutdown mode after the first area; this is notable because my attention and overload problems do not happen when I am playing games.  Movies, theme parks, women talking, all of that, but not games.  Not Rez.  Not Unreal Tournament.  I don't blank out with games, never.  Except for Odin Sphere.  I guess I could call it Painful Beauty, and I for one am glad that the combat is as simple as it is because the rest of it is not.

I found one thing that when added to killing zombies, makes the entire experience greater.  Killing clowns. How the heck am I supposed to play anything else when presented with such a bounty?

Ohh yah, day 2 is funny.  Sorry, survivors, not enough time.  LOL, I actually ran by one screaming for help.  Can't say I felt bad either.

2 years behind everyone else, I finally picked up Stubbs the Zombie because it's available on Steam now.  I'm loving it.  It's not like it's got great gameplay, but it has so much HEART that I don't care.  Zombies driving tractors... how is it nobody else thought of this before?

Because your average zombie can't open a door, let alone put their hands on 10 and 2.

Was that rhetorical?

The zombies in Return of the Living Dead could dial a phone.  And that one guy in Land of the Dead fired a gun.  I think they could have handled a tractor without too much trouble.  Such wasted potential.

Not to mention the dance-off, or the sheep-riding, or the tearing someone's arm off and beating them to death with it.  Just awesome.

Downloading HL: Episode 1 now, 10 bucks on steam.  Thinking about Stubbs but I hear it's exceptionally short (Yes, I know, I've heard the same thing about Ep 1).

Edit: Dl' Ep 1, not ep 2.

Does the $10 get you Portal and TF2 too?

Crap, I meant downloading Ep 1 for 10 bucks.

Shaun of the Dead taught us that zombies can play video games, too.

Are you guys really having a discussion about what zombies can and can't do? 

Just checkin'  ;)

Oh, and playing LOTRO and WoW.  Why?  Good question on both counts.

Because you don't own Dead Rising? If not, I'm outta ideas.

Does Etrian let you just close the DS and open it back to EXACTLY where you were before?  <---neccessary for commute.

Also, I'm in a huge gaming rut at the moment and can't get into anything really.  Loaded up Dawn of War finally, and got 3 missions in before I was bored.  Loaded up Starcraft, and am actually enjoying that for a bit.  I was discussing with Schild that I must secretly hate playing video games as I never ever play them past the 4-5 hour mark.  Except for WoW, but plenty of non-gamers play that.

Yeh, I'm still on WOW mostly.  Sporadically on LOTRO and EQ2.

But mostly WOW.  Branched out to Dath'Remar alliance and rolled up my ever-gruff Dwarf hunter Harguk!  At least it's not a dirty dirty NELF.  And I love pet classes.  I do have a gnome rogue and human warlock too...but not playing them nearly so much.  They're still newbies.  The warlock will be my disenchant monkey.

I'm renovating my basement so my TV and game consoles are packed away at the moment :(

Grim Grimoire, Atelier Iris 3, Picross DS (european version), Etrian Odyssey.

WoW mostly, some FF12 mixed in. I almost broke down and bought Titan Quest+Expansion (I didn't get it before as the demo touched my computer inappropriately, did they ever fix that?)... instead, I just started Diablo II - LoD again.

I needed my ding-lewts without 9-24 other idiots it seems.

Yes but every DS game I have tried does that, except for Animal Crossing.  For EO it is fairly critical.

EDIT:  Oops, forgot.  Odin Sphere and Etrian Odyssey.  Going out of town again for the weekend, taking the Wii.  I won't bother to report what I played all weekend, but I am taking the DS and EO.

I played Dead Rising on my brother's 360 and um, not for me.  Great ideas but that save game system killed it for me.  That, and all my gaming muscle memory is keyboard and mouse - controller no good.

I'm thinking about trying Republic Commando. Last time I did it was on the Xbox and I couldn't get into it. I'll try the PC version and see if it sticks...

In the last week I have played: EQ2, LOTRO, SWG, Guild Wars, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Odin Sphere, Pirates of the Carribean: At Worlds End (360), Hotel Dusk, Pokemon Pearl, Guitar Hero II (360), and Fallout 2.

The last was for an article I was writing; don't expect to do much more playing on that front in the near future. Oh those wacky post-apocalyptic settings.

Ep 1 is shorter, but much more dense.  It's what single-player games should be IMO.

Been messing around in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, which is good fun if only for watching Space Marines bringing the smack down to various Xenos scum.

Just got and started playing Company of Heroes, I'm doing SP campaign on easy because one of the things I've found I really like in THQ games is setting troops up in defensive positions and watching the firefights movie style. This seems to become much more difficult on any other difficulty as I tend to lose track of everything else that's going on. I'm  not gonna get too much more of it till the weekend as I still have a couple of exams for my finals to do. Hopefully CoH won't be costing me a degree class or anything...

Etrian Odyssey.  :heart:

Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm. About 8-10 hours a day.

Does this game require you to play 1&2 to have any idea of what's going on?

Atelier Iris 1, 2, and 3 are independent stories. Like Final Fantasy.

But also, much like final fantasy, the systems are on a learning curve. Well, maybe not. The 3rd one is the least tedious. It's very streamlined.

Based on my experience with 1 & 2, it might be a good idea to play the older games first just so you have some concept of the universe.  Unlike Final Fantasy, the first two games take place in the same world some hundreds of years apart, so some of the locations are smilar, and there are tons of common threads.  That said, you probably don't need to if you can't find them/don't have the time, etc.  But they are both great games in and of themselves, totally worth playing.

Also, in the spirit of this thread, I'm currently wasting time with Wild Arms 3 until Atelier Iris' public release.  Also occasionally Titan Quest and Odin Sphere.

Reinstalled Freespace 2 this weekend for some old style space-sim action.  Also playing GTA: San Andreas.  LOTR online is on-hold.

Oh - and for all  your zombie information, I recommend "The Zombie Survival Guide (http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Max-Brooks/dp/071563318X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-5009862-5381210?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180426640&sr=8-1)" by Max "Son of Mel" Brooks.

I did not actually play any Wii games over the weekend, just Cranium and Etrian Odyssey.  My wife started playing Oblivion on the 360 when we got back.  The funny thing with her playing Oblivion is that she figured out very quickly that the "do anything" blurb is a complete lie.  I answered all of her "why" questions with "so it would fit on a 360 disc".  Her hate is growing, and when she strikes me down to take my place, the transformation will be complete.

Played some Civ 4. Started an odd game on an archipelago, played it kinda like a civ rpg, where I chose techs for personal reasons rather than gaming my choices. Like...if I were running things, what would I find most important from the choices. Very interesting and I haven't been invaded yet, which is a good thing. No military units! Complete isolationist.

Going to have to insall that FfH thing.

I played Guitar Hero 2, and Sim City 4 over the weekend.  I'm stuck at Psychobilly Freakout - Expert.

Ohya I rolled up the King and the Queen in the same katamari, in We Love Katamari.  He said some funny stuff in the debriefing afterwards.  3600!  I think I could get it a little bigger, but not much.

I also picked up GH II (360) over the weekend, and all i can say is:  :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: My only complaint is the controller kills my wrist.

Looks like my short-lived PGA Tour 07 career is going to take a hit.

Ah, gratz, so far that one has eluded me.  Stupid King, running off when I get big enough.

Not really playing anything right now, looking around for something... Tried the Theatre of War demo but was very disappointed, has some promise but extremely poor modeling of cover/concealment and crappy UI/control scheme kills it. Rented Crackdown and that was good fun for a few days, it needs more missions and better AI though, jumping around for power ups etc.. got boring quick.

Read a neat Eugene Jarvis (Defender, Robotron 2084) interview on Gamasutra, he was raving about the indie gaming scene, been a while since I poked around in that stuff so that is something I want to look into again.

Not to veer this thread off course, but there was some talk of JRPGs in another thread, I've never played one, anyone know if there are some representative ones for either PC or 360?

Wrong format.   Get a PS2 (and we can recommend tons) or get a SNES emulator and play FF3 (US) / Chrono Trigger. 

Upcoming, I've heard good things about Blue Dragon for the 360 from folks who enjoy JRPGs.

There are plenty of older JPRGs published to the PC format, but they really are best experienced in the original (which is to say, PS2). If you're desperate for one right now, the (in my opinion just 'pretty good') extremely highly touted FFVII is available for the PC.

I really can't endorse playing games originally meant for consoles on a PC. Unless it involves aiming and guns.

Sometimes I play old console games using GameTap on the PC.  I wish they'd start making more discs with compilations of old console games.

I finished up M&M IV and V a couple days ago.  It was glorious.  I didn't realize how much I missed old school PC RPGs!

I'm going to try to finish up Odin Sphere over the next week.  I just started Mercedes's (?) story.  I'm really digging the game.  After I'm done I'm planning on trying Dragon Quarter and hopefully playing that until Grim Grimoire is released.

I've tried starting Dragon Quarter about 500 times now.

Just can't do it.

And what kills me about it is I KNOW there's something awesome there.

Hubby started playing Act Razor on Virtual Console. He seems happy.

ACTRAISER.

On the PC, my main game seems to be STALKER. I've added the floating point engine mod, the realism mod and then modded it further (removed viewbob, given myself a ridiculously high weight limit and run a bit faster). It's a really good game, I'm at Pripyat now. I'm also playing a bit of DoW:Dark Crusade, I have finished the campaign with a few races now trying with another. DoW has been constantly played in one form of the other since it came out.


DS - Trying to get past the mission Pincer Strike for months now in Advance Wars, and keep failing. Also enjoying Age of Empires.

lol I am such a newb.

Civ4 FfH.

Island nation of elves who worship Cthulhu, undead minions who walk underwater.

Enough said. First time playing it and I'm sucked in. Good stuff.

Phantasy Star Universe was surely an Xbox title that was converted to the 360 at the last minute.  Surely.

Neg. PC title converted to 360. Universe was never planned for the Xbox.

I think Champions of Norrath has that too.

Yes, that mission was quite a bitch. Awesome game though.

Also, I need to pick up AoE on the DS. I can get it cheap atm.

While that is very odd, it does explain a lot.  Lame graphics and somewhat clunky controls.

Last night, Etrian Odyssey, and I beat a stalker.  Two in a row, in fact, and it felt great.

More Oblivion on 360.  I am playing it differently than on PC.  I am just going through the Mage Guild quests instead of exploring the countryside.

KoTOR works well on PC, too. Not many conlsole-RPGs do, but that's one that I was happy with.



This mod sounds better and better all the time!

Did the same thing. Played as a thiefy class on the PC, wandered around, beat the game, had a blast. My PC starts dying, I buy Oblivion for the 360, and I have to churn through the damn thing for achieve^H^H^H^Hdirected quest rewards.

Well... I guess I will have to send you a Friend Request so you can keep track of my achievement score.  I'm halfway to four digits!

(http://www.glop.org/gamercard/card/f13schild-newo.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N560NCIsaS8)

Just waiting on my credit card rewards thingy ($100 gift card) then I'll get get my 360 and Dead Rising, Gears of War, and Crackdown.

Etrian Odessy is on it's way (fuck I fucked that up) from Amazon.

Also, DotA.

Looks like "schild" goes on the Do Not Click list as well.  Glad I did not make that MyGamerCard .sig image I was considering.

Looks like you got Rick Rolled.

OH NO!

Yeah, I'm no longer a Rickroll virgin.  I have no idea what it is about but I do know it is BAD.  How could you do that to someone that had just played three hours of PSU?

GTA3 : Vice city.  I was contemplating picking up liberty city stories, but am scared it will suck.  I tried San Andreas; may or may not come back to it.

I am a shitty gamer.

I might play a weeks worth of Dragon Runners just because they opened up all the ultra uber items with this one week trial for non-subscribers.  I deserve that shit.

In addition to the stuff pages back (hey I'm slow) I'm playing Fallout II (OS X v) again. It's fun...

Err... it's Dungeon Runners, not Dragon Runners, by the way.   :oops:

Just downloaded a demo of  3D Language Spain.  Hope I learn something.

Pasta LaTaco, frienditos! (http://www.garagegames.com/products/117/)

Forza 2.

that is all.

Another weekend out of town for me, taking the family to Carowinds (http://www3.paramountparks.com/carowinds/) and not riding anything adult-flavored.  I took my DS along so that I could be assured of not having any time to play it.

Played a little split-screen Rainbow 6 Vegas while there but did not bother to import my user on the other 360.  After I got back, I was again invited to play some R6V and let myself be shot to bits in a couple matches until my wife was ready to play more Oblivion.  I decided to try Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin before going back to Etrian Odyssey but I was completely taken in and did not play anything else the rest of the short evening.  Portrait of Ruin is sexy.

Beat Dead Rising.  Last boss fight was complete bullshit and if possible, even worse than the other boss fights.  Great game with some serious flaws.  Infinity mode is OK, but I'd just rather have a mode where I have saves, have all items available, the shortcut is unlocked, my life doesn't slowly decay, and I can just go around killing zombies without Otis bothering me about saving people. 

And Forza 2..  yah..  :heart:

Might as well update this...

PS2
* Guitar Hero 2 (beat medium over the weekend)
* FFXII
* God of War (somewhere in the middle, very slow burn)

Back burner: Bully, GoW2, Shadow of the Colossus, Disgaea 2

PC
* Eve
* JSettlers

Board/Card
* Lunch Money
* Apples to Apples

My fucking Xbox died, so no more FIFA for me. Fuck.

On a good note, I did pick Zelda on the Wii back up, and got past the part I was stuck on. Silly me forgot how to use the B button to grab multiple enemies and kill them. I feel like an idiot.

Atelier Iris 3!  Sweet mission mode monotony!

I have spent 60 minutes with this demo and have nothing to show for it except I might have dysentery.   :cry:

Well it's a good thing you are sitting on the toilet then, isn't it?

 :-D

Three games are fighting hard, like Bruce-Lee-hard, for my playtime: Forza 2, Etrian Odyssey and Portrait of Ruin.  Forza 2 is currently winning, being the Second Coming of Racing Sims that it is.  The other two games are also very addictive and I am pretty torn between them; just the fact that they are DS games should say a lot.

Games lurking in my peripheral vision include Atelier Iris 3, Odin Sphere and Oblivion-360.  The main reason Oblivion has a presence in my consciousness is that my wife is playing it.  If you bother to check my achievements in Oblivion, every single one was unlocked by my wife.  Odin Sphere is held outside my center view because it keeps punching me in the balls.  Atelier Iris 3 is a side-item because I cannot play it without my wife being conscious, and she is busy with Oblivion.

I either need a clone or eleven meeeelion dollars.

Heh. I recently bought my 360 and played like 8 hours of Crackdown (free rental).  Etrian Odyssey just arrived yesterday, and I'll play that on the train this afternoon.

The last few nights have been owned by Fall from Heaven.  Gears of War and Forza2 are still in plastic! Damn you Civ4, damn you!

Yeah, FfH is laying the smacketh. I had to take off some time last night to play some guitar.

I think I've got a week of vacation in the next month or so, I really need to dig into Gothic 3 at some point. Not to mention climbing the learning curve of X3, and finishing off MUA (I keep going back to the beginning to start new supergroups. I wish you could get a Black Powah group for Storm, Black Panther, Blade and Luke Cage.

I thought Storm was Indian.

I'm getting more into Zelda with my Xbox down, and I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could say this is not a gorgeous graphical game. It's just beautiful.

African.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_%28Marvel_Comics%29

Only if I plug it into my 24" 12yr old tv upstairs.  On my 2 year old 60" 1080p main tv, it tends to lose a bit of shine.

Because my TV was made in the 21st century maybe.  My own fault, I am sure, but it has a certain graininess in the textures that you mostly see in crossplatform titles.  This should not be a surprise since it actually is a cross-platform title.  Without using the Nintendo version of a web-safe pallette (Metroid Prime, Paper Mario), everything tends to look bad.  Looks better than Warrior Within but not as good as Wind Waker.  It's not something that I'm going to get a grainy vagina over, though.

My issue with Twilight Princess has more to do with the phoned-in game design rather than graphics, but the inevitable and unfavorable comparisons to Okami certainly don't help things.

Didn't look as good as Resident Evil 4. That's a problem.

My TV is less than 2 years old. It just isn't HD. Nothing is Resident Evil 4. That game is pretty fucking close to graphical perfection, IMO.

But for overall art design, Twilight Princess is pretty goddamn pretty.

Well, RE4 Wii I think is the best argument against the Wii.

It's the PS2 games content + the GCs textures with some tacked on controls.

I'll play it and love it. But that description pretty much defines Nintendo thus far.

I'm not going to argue opinions, but good call on my hyperbole with the TV age; I know you don't have the HDTV and in this case I think you are better off.  Twilight Princess comes off as grainy and brown to me, but I liked Wind Waker's art and don't have a problem with it reducing the color scope so it can look good.  I wanted a Zelda game that looked more like a Zelda game rather than Shadow of the Colossus.  I got the stylized characters but did not get the vibrant colors.  Fortunately I have Okami for my "hero dog with annoying helper RPG with item-collection-instead-of-levels-and-dark-light-world" game.

It is also very true that Twilight Princess does not look as good as RE4, but I would overlook that if the gameplay was more engaging.  I don't, for example, have a problem playing Phantom Dust on the 360 even though it looks grainy and washed-out, since it's a great game and I don't know of a suitable alternative to that gameplay.

Since I did not have a problem aiming in RE4 on the Cube, I can't see myself getting RE4Wii.

Anyone know if RE4 PC is going to be patched to goodness or not? I'd guess not, but I would like to play it, since I loved the remake and zero.

Playing Fate until CoV double xp weekend, though I play every now and then so I don't forget how.  I never got very far in Fate anyway and it's a fun diversion.   It also fills my loot whore needs nicely. 

Etrian Odyssey.  I keep finding new things and still quite frequently feel lucky to be alive after some battles.  I also felt some panic when I realized that I forgot to buy a warp wire last time I was in town.  Lots of emotion from such a simple game.

I also downloaded the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo, and my boner knocked over the coffee table.  I'm such a slut.

I've started playing Fallout for the first time, took a wee bit of getting used to (modern games really have me spoiilt with autosaves and gentle easy intros) but I can see why it's so popular. Hoping to be able to devote some serious time to it fairly soon as I've only really dipped into it. At the moment I can only fir my pistol once per turn and basically rely on the NPCs to really kill anything worthwhile.

Hah, I should get some of these demos, I want to give Overlord a try since I actually did enjoy Fable up to a point.

Also, I'm <3 Etrian.  The map thingy seems to add alot more depth and makes me care a lot more.  Also, I've already had near party wipes and I'm only 2 hours in!

Since I've upgraded my box, I've binned the self-flagellation that Is Doom3+expack for the time being and am playing my way through both Far Cry and Half-Life 2 again, but with gfx settings turned way up. A touch of BF2, a bit of WoW, and a starting of HoM&M V. I love tactics-type games so it's great.

I wiped 15 minutes in.

Twice.

Corrupted my GH2 save by shutting it off at the wrong time yesterday. :x

Didn't realize it until today. Starting replaying medium, 5-starring shit like there's no tomorrrow. :)

I can't 5-star medium. It's too slow and missing too many notes :(

So uh... I've played nothing but Forza 2, the new Pac Man game (which rocks my ass), and VF5.  Poor Dragon Quarter, on the backlog it goes.

I started playing Silent Hill 2 for realz for the first time. Also, I finished the Folk's Soul (to be called Folklore in America) demo on the PS3. That is, by far, the best looking game in existence. It blows EVERYTHING on the 360 away. Including Gears of War.

Also, playing Gold of Juarez every now and again. And will probably finish Atelier Iris 3 today. Finally.

I played City of Heroes all weekend.  A little Forza 2 as well.  Trying to make a Venture Bros. car design.

Odin Sphere, and CivIV's Fall From Heaven mod.

Also, Gemstone IV. Big Lolz.

I played about 10 'years' of Sid Meier's Pirates today. I think I may continue this guy and see how afraid of me I can make the Spainards by the time I am too old to swachbuckle anymore.

I need to find a new game to play, but that requires investing money in some kind of newer game platform, which I have none of (money) at the moment.

I'm preparing for another go through of all the old Gold Box stuff.  Might go through all the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale stuff after that.  It depends on if anything good has come out by the time I'm done with the Gold Box games.  Also whipped out Master of Orion 2, with the intentions of playing it again sometime in the near future.  Years back when I lived with a room-mate, we had a running competition for months to see who could get the highest score.  Good times.

Finally got some traction in Atelier Iris 3.  It is awesome.  Otherwise, I went to a wedding, which was actually awesome as well (Chinese theme, bagpipe instead of organ, outdoors, and Guns-n-Roses in violin form).  I pressure-washed half of my back porch while my wife played Oblivion, after which I played a bit.

Finally seduced a coworker into picking up WOW.  He's currently learning the ropes, sending lots of annoying whisper questions, all that jazz. 

On the plus side, he likes to play heal-bitches.

So now I'm having to level up alliance-side.  I tried to get him on Horde, but he decided he likes the Draenei for priest.  And I can't really blame him for preferring the NELF for Druid (his current alt-of-choice).  I mean, who really likes playing a cow-person? ~shrugs~

Feel free to join me on Dath'Remar. HINT HINT!!

I did when I played WoW, but then I ran around in Bearform all of the time.

Put a Win98 Vmdisk on my computer and playing the hell out of Magic the Gathering right now. I really have no excuse for that, guess I went mad after all that Fall from Heaven playing.

Well, random coworker is levelling mainly his priest, with the NELF druid alt.  B/F is working on a human warlock after I finally dragged him kicking and screaming away from the blood elfs.  I've got my fearless dwarf hunter.

We need a tank.  And maybe a mage.  People who play during the happy happy Korean primetime.  Unless you plan on hooking up on weekends for fun stuff.  Then you just have to like whatever weird hours that would be back in your hometimezone.

If you happen to drop by, my hunter's name is Harguk.  Add me at your own risk ^_~

His growl is worse than his bite, really.

I played Etrian Odyssey for 45 minutes today, sitting on the men's-room toilet of my office floor.

Yesterday I played "Get Lost in the Rogue River National Forest By Yourself for 12 Miles". It took me 5 hours to beat it.

But were your pants around your ankles?  If not, I win.

She said "Rogue River National Forest" not "Rikers Island Maximum Security Prison."

Back when Morrowind first came out, I fired it up and was like "Oh yeah, nonlinear, open world, skill system... I guess I should like this."  Then I quit playing after a couple days.  For the hell of it I threw a bargain-bin copy into the Xbox last week and somehow it's sucked me in this time.  I'm level thirty-something and I haven't gone near the main quest yet.

Also, speaking of WoW, cows are the coolest Horde race.  Orcs are boring, undead are emo, blood elves are god damned elves, and trolls are like some racist stereotype burped up after two-dozen consecutive viewings of Marked for Death.  If I ever resub for some reason, I'm going to see if Screwface makes it through the name filter.

Oh, I'm sure Screwface is already taken.  Have you SEEN some of the names in WOW?

I'd rather play that game.  I actually miss the days of spending 4 days out of the week hiking around in the wilderness.  Any job openings for an electrical engineer?

Did you find the Sasquatch encounter Easter Egg?

No, I was actually lost. If I had taken a left when I got to the first road, I'd only have had to walk 3 miles to my car. Instead I walked 12 miles of switchback until my coworker got phone reception and could come to pick me up. I had no compass, only an aerial photo and a 30-year topo map with no road names on either.  :x

Having never played Morrowind in-depth before, I was rather staggered the other night at how exploitable the system is.  Money can be created from thin air by selling at one shop what you just bought next door, and it's easy to become insanely powerful without really doing anything.  Just for shits and giggles I ran my guy up to level... some assinine number... tonight.  It's not even a matter of using bugs, it's just a matter of very simple logical loopholes.  "If the cost of training depends on my skill level, I should debuff that skill before I train it!  Derp!"

I mean come on, a designer should at least look like he's trying to keep the player honest.  There's nothing wrong with cheating in a single-player game of course, but leaving a huge "INSTANT WIN" button just sitting out there cheapens the game.

One of these days I'm going to talk about a game that's less than 3 years old, but I don't know when...

I dunno, that was half the fun for me.  I mean, I sure as hell wasn't enjoying the combat mechanics, but it was kind of cool getting my moogle so hopped up on +int potions that he could solve the universe, and then brewing potions that gave me ten thousand strength for the next six hundred hours, maybe selling one to earn enough money to buy the world.  Pop the cork on one and punch a god in the face so hard that their lips wrap all the way around their head.  Then listen to some old lady asking me to find her cat for a shiny nickel or some damn thing.

Edit: Oh yeah, what I'm playing...

-I juuuuust beat Final Fantasy XII, which I consider an accomplishment since I generally don't have the stamina to finish JRPGs.
-Also just got to book 3 in Odin Sphere, might not get much farther.  Playing as Mercedes the pretty fairy princess as she flits about the enchanted wood is even more emasculating than I thought it would be.
-Running through single player Warcraft III and Starcraft, too, although Starcraft looks like ass widescreen and it's screwing with my desktop.

Heh, WUA, you should try Daggerfall.  The character XP system is based on positive and negative traits; one big negative trait is Critical Weakness to Paralysis.  High Elves (in Daggerfall) are immune to paralysis, so giving them this trait doesn't do anything but make them level quickly.  Also, merchants don't kick you out of shops when they close (IIRC) and you can just help yourself to everything.  You can also fly while riding a horse, which is hilarious.  Finally, werewolves are immune to normal weapons and most town guards don't have silver weapons.  Either you believe the design is broken or you relish the freedom.  One man's trash and whatnot.

Oblivion has been normalized quite a bit, relatively speaking, so maybe you can play that one without feeling like you are cheating.  Probably not, though.

Morrowind cheating again... have you contracted corprus yet?  When you do, don't cure it for a long, long time.

I have put in all the mods for Fate and now I can fight Giant dogs and peppermint blobs, there are santa costumes and party dresses, my pet doggie has changed into a phoenix, there are xmas gifts lying around and my main weapon is a lamp.

That sounds bizarrely intriguing.

 The Game.  (http://games.wildtangent.com/fate/)

 The Mods.  (http://www.worldoffate.com/mods.html)

Knock your socks off!

There are player mods for Fate? Thanks, for a bizarre reason that possibility never occured to me. I'll give those a try after my FFH phase subsides.

Man. I played the shit out of Fate. And somehow, I never thought to look for mods either. Gonna get me some of that.

lol, Fenrir just owned me for 2 hours of time in Etrian.  Stupid ice specialty alchemist.  Now what?  Start over?

I once figured out this way of getting basically infinite items and gold in Ultima V, by going to a particular dungeon room and using a particular item in an unintended way.  I exploited the living hell out of this little loophole, and felt quite pleased with myself for it.  I had figured out something that the creators of the game had overlooked.

But exploiting in Morrowind feels different somehow.  I know the developers had to be aware of all this stuff, and since it's still in the game I have to assume they condone it.  Therefore the game is about becoming a god and raping the universe, and that game only takes one or two nights to finish.

I will admit that murdering Vivec in his temple and then carving a bloody swath all over the countryside was pretty fun the other night.  But after that I deleted the character.  Once you've walked up to God and bitchslapped him, being asked to go kill bandits doesn't hold much interest.

I figured out a way to get free bikes in Road Rash 2 on the Genesis. That was fun.

Nah, what's up with your party?  I had two landsknechts, two survivalists and a medic.  Also I think I was level 16-ish and I think I was very lucky to make it through that fight alive.  I have both a sword- and axe-specialist landsknecht, one of the survivalists is all about pre-emptive strike.  My medic isn't awesome but he can get on item duty.  I guess the question is, is the problem that the other wolves jump in during the fight?  If so then you might want to try to wack one of them and run away, refuel and come back.

Played some Tenchu Z over the weekend.  Better than I expected, although Grey is the new Brown.

Some Oblivion on 360 once the wife is done with it.  Trying hard to only do Mage quests.  Accidentally picked up a nirnroot.  Much gnashing.  Hope to make a black soul gem soon.

Portrait of Ruin.

Shadowrun Demo was more fun than I thought it would be.  Sucks ass that there is no single-player.

I'm about L17-18 with a Protector, Survivalist, whip chick, ice alchemist (wolves resist), and my medic.  I get owned.  Tempted to shelf them and roll up some of the different classes w/ all this cash I have.

Yeah, I suggest making some new characters and use your current guys to level them.  I am leveling a fire alchemist with a team of level 26-29 people: the aforementioned two landsknechts, survivalist and medic.  This is because I feel the need for some artillery that is more powerful than the survivalist I had on the back row.  Protectors, I either don't get them or they suck.  Not sure which; probably a bad build actually but I don't feel like experimenting.  Landsknechts, on the other hand, rock the balls off of most things, especially if you specialize in ATK and axe.

From what I can tell, the skills HP MAX UP and TP MAX UP are cumulative such that you want to get those leveled up first thing.  Not sure about DEF UP.  So leveling up a new squad, I would suggest going for some hardcore build and putting them into your main team somewhere.  This way you can level them more quickly and also get used to them.

I also assume you have done a little time with the mine/take/chop skills?  I would finally suggest that you beat a stalker as soon as you are able to, you can make a nice weapon from the scythe.

Ya, beat all the stalkers on that level, hence the mad bank.  I figured as much about the Protector, this game is feels alot more about killing faster than suriving, so I'll hit up a few chars tonight.  Thanks for the advice.

On vacation, starting Gothic 3 finally. I love the Gothic series. I hope Piranha Bytes survived the loss of Jowood's backing. The move to a faction-based game is great.

@MrHat: If you don't consider it cheating, there are skill pre-requisite guides on gamefaqs.com that could be helpful in circumventing excessive trial-end-error.  Plus I forget what gives you what anyway.

Tempted to start a separate Etrian Odyssey thread but I suspect there are only three people here playing it.

Let me know if you can get past the first ten minutes of the game. Fucker would CTD once every five minutes of gameplay. Finally just deleted it.

I think that may be the first game I've completely given up on trying to fix.

Ya, I don't mind the trial and error, it's pretty straight forward, L3 Ice, L5 Ice Skill, etc.

Yeah, played about an hour last nigt and a couple hours today, runs great. Just a few loading hitches and I hear there's a memory leak, but I don't play that long anyway in one sitting.

I tweaked the heck out of the graphics using the official forums as a guideline, though. Looks splendified.

Yeg: Have you tried the respecing feature? It says you lose 10 levels, but can replace your points.  I don't quite understand.

It only works if you are level 30.  Your clvl drops 10 levels, all points set to 1 and you get your new clvl worth of points to spend.

It kinda sucks.

Only just got to lv 29 or 30 so have not tried the respec.  Not sure I want to de-level one of my landsknechts.  Sounds like what I imagined, which is sucky but not quite as sucky as leveling someone from the ground up.  I want to try the retirement thing.

I decided to dust off the playstation and pop in the best Simian themed game not called Donky Kong.....Ape Escape.

God spankin monkeys with a lightsaber is entertainment at 1999's finest.

Dude. Planescape: Torment AND System Shock 2 came out in 1999.

Played some Dragon Quest 8.  Nice to know the formula hasn't changed since 1.  Except now it's not charming and doesn't bring forth any nostalgia; it's just horribly annoying.  At least I only paid $15 bucks for this stinker. 

Fired up Shadow Hearts: From the New World.  So far it's the weakest of the three, and I'm just about to the point where the game stops introducing new systems.  The balance is just all over the place, the story is disjointed and uninteresting so far, and while it has the improvements 2 made over 1, they just added a lot of extraneous crap (and changed stuff that didn't need changing).   However, this one does seem like it's worth playing through and finishing, since the humor is there, it looks and sounds good, the judgment ring owns,  and I have the need to get a feeling for how this series ends up. The story should pick up, since barely anything has happened and I'm already 2.5 hours in. I think this one will end up being a number of memorable moments rather than the masterpiece Shadow Hearts: Covenant was.

I couldn't finish Shadow Hearts 3.  I played the hell out of it for a few days, then got totally sick of it.  And I absolutely loved the first two games.

Heh.. kind of glad that it's the only one I've ever played then.  Some day I'll return and finish it and FF12.  Not any time soon, though, as I tried this weekend and they both put me to sleep.

I never finish anything if it's long or hard.  Especially when they're long AND hard.  Unless I cheat.  Then I finish really fast.  It's so much harder to cheat on consoles though.   :?

/spittake

Poor Righ :(

At least she finishes.

Poor Righ?  Poor MrHat!

Poor, poor kitten.

WHATISWRONGWITHYOUPEOPLE???

Well, MrHat likes inter-species erotica, I suppose that could be considered part of what is wrong with him.

But it's a quite literal interpretation of pounding your monkey into a pussy.

Tonight I will be playing The Darkness (360) and writing my Grim Grimoire (PS2)  review.

Tomorrow I will be playing Overlord (360) and Hoshigami Remix (DS).

On Thursday, I should be getting my copy of Raw Danger for the PS2.

Next week is Vampire's Rain and Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

It's a good two weeks.

Gothic 3 still rocks. You can really hotrod the graphics via the ini file.

Figure I'm about 60% though Shadow Hearts 3.  I'm playing it about an hour a night and I figure I'll end up finishing it, but I doubt I'll do many of the side quests.

Forza 2 is still great to toss in and play for 30 minutes to an hour at a time.

Oblivion [360]
Etrian Odyssey
Atelier Iris 3 rubs the lotion on its skin.

Editing fun.

Any word on why they didn't call it "Ninja Gaiden Really Really Black"?

Maybe they didn't want people assuming they used the Doom 3 engine?

I really wish I could play an RPG like that, but the perfectionist in me commands that I  do all available sidequests. It also says that I must destroy all barrels and crates in dungeon crawlers, and fully explore all maps when possible.


It tends to make playing RPGs incompatible with casual gaming, or finishing a game quickly.  :|

Not that many sidequests in the Shadowhearts series.

About one per character in addition to whatever sort of collection activity a character may have (not all chars have collections, but SH3 has more collection stuff than the others).  The side quests are usually very well done (ie full additional dungeons) and tend to add a great deal to the characters.  However, some are also incredibly hard to find unless you're psychic.  Gamefaqs ftw.

It's not the number or length that's going to do me in, the story just isn't compelling enough for me to flesh it out more than the basic plot.

Finding mushrooms in the woods 2 weeks ago, failing at growing vegetables and hearing cicadas made me start playing Harvest Moon again.

Sigma is a mathematical notation for sum.  They might have called it Super Lotsa Added Stuff Ninja Gaiden - Extended Weapons, but SLASNG'EW is not a good acronym.

My 360 decided to break.  I got back from my trip, wanted to play some Viva Pinata, repeated crashing and red rings of death occurred.  There were no Elites to be found.  So I bought a core system, and swapped the HD over.

But played Viva Pinata.  Got a dragon egg.  Hatched him on cracked earth.

So you think we might be seeing Ninja Gaiden Lambda or logNinjaGaiden next?

Phildo, most fans are merely expecting "Ninja Gaiden 2." I realize it's not as sexy as Ninja Gaiden 2ΠR but sometimes you take what you can get.

Well, I ditched EQ2 again.  Not even dark fae could keep me there.  Which would shock most people who know me very well.  If there is one thing that could really grab me and keep me, it SHOULD be dark fae ~sigh~

DATH'REMAR!  Still having a blast in WOW.  Love playing my hunter.  Coworkers paladengineer should be ready for VC soon, and I can help run him through it.  He finally got bored of priest levelling speed.  Yes, I realize the irony of him changing to paladin.  Tried to warn him, but to no avail.  Boyfriend still slowly levelling his 'lock.  Should be able to 3-way through VC with some luck.

Oh, stopped playing LOTRO.  It just can't hold my interest.  It's ok.  It just doesn't make me horny, baby.

I would be beta'ing TR, but it keeps CTDing.  Can't test if you can't play.

Some sporadic Dark Crusade on the side, too.  Love the Risklike map conqueroring.  WAAAAAAAAAGH!

And I just stole Overlord.  We'll see if the game works better than the demo.

DATH'REMAR.  Ok, I'm done.

Unfortunately for these people, it appears to be the same damn game.

I was making a Math/Sigma joke. Ninja Gaiden 2 is going to be different and will be on the 360 in the next year or so. Heh. Sarchasm?

Interesting piece of trivia:  most Koreans have no concept of sarcasm.  They don't use it, and they don't understand it unless you explain it carefully each time.  It has made a few of my classes quite...bizarre.





Edit:  Also, DATH'REMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe they are just all being very subtly sarcastic back?

Funny, but no.

There is a subtle difference between "blank asian expression" and "i don't know what you're talking about".

I guess its like lying to those poor aliens in Galaxy Quest, eh? I can't imagine how I could survive without sarcasm. Are there no customer related jobs in Korea?

Quite possibly.  I latched onto "Ninja Gaiden 2" too strongly, even though I got the punchline.  Either your setup was too strong or I am too sick to understand comedy right now.

Ahem.
Atelier Iris 3, only.  Very sick.

What is wrong with you?  You get sick too much.  Stop it.  Are you sure you're not being poisoned?

Played Grim Grimoire last night.  It may be hard to put this one down.  Episodic presentation just kicks all kind of ass.

Do I really get sick a lot?  I should stop it, indeed.  It's not poison exactly, it's that I'm living above my stress-line.

Well, that's more than enough of that shit.

transformers the game is a piece of shit.
They need to release a demo or something, cause my cousin just bought a really crappy game that tried to do robot+driving mini game that failed at both.

Movie License=Piece of shit game

Never too late to learn that lesson.

Thirty-something hours into Atelier Iris 3, I get my first Mana.  It's awesome.

I assume you mean blades? I got my first one about 12 hours in, are you playing with your feet?

I don't rush the end-zone when I play, I meander.  In this case, I spent a lot of time dicking around in the newbie forest area trying to harvest three nuts.  Still haven't gotten them!  Those "skill points" that were apparently borrowed from Ratchet & Clank are insidious.  I spend more time at the alchemy pot than I should.  When I got the fishing pole, that added some padding as well.

Got a surprise one when I did not check the map once on a visit to Posporia.  I was very satisfied.

Yes, the hidden stuff is awesome. For stuff like "did not look at map" you just have to hit 10 different rooms without looking. There's simply a whole bunch of shit in AI3. I'm in the next to last area, I should really finish it (at about 40 hours on the clock atm).

I dusted off the SNES and plunked my old FF3 cartridge into it for a nostalgia trip.  I fired up a saved game that started just after Kefka blew up the world, except I must have been cheating like a motherfucker somehow when last I played this years ago, because Celes and every party member I met thereafter was level 99 and I was loaded with items and gold.

Oh well, whatever.  It was fun for a little while, but the random battles were just fucking infuriating.  Being interrupted to kill the same space buffalo and two pyramid-shaped bugs every three steps was just intolerable, even when they were all one-shot kills.  It literally got me to shut the game off, pleased as I was with the rest of it.  There's just no going back to some things.

Still playing Gothic 3. Those games really deliver imo. Nice change-up in location, I'm doing the desert area. Nice thematic change, music and npc accents and whatnot. I was planning on sticking to paladin type the first playthrough, but I've beat the tar out of so much stuff I think I'll be taking on mage skills since I have the learning points. Then hunter/assassin/thief when I play through again later.

Got the urge to reinstall Thief 3 as I never finished it. Played more Gothic instead.

I don't buy many games because it takes me so long to play them. But that's how I like it, saves a ton of dough!

Atelier Iris 3
Oblivion (360 flavor)
Arx Fatalis (working Steam version)

I really like Arx Fatalis because I can cast spells that are not in my spellbook.  Example, I substituted the poison rune for the fire rune in the Fireball spell, and cast a ranged poison spell.  Doesn't appear anywhere in my spellbook.  I will have to write this stuff down before I forget the working combinations.

I mentioned Arx Fatalis' differences from Oblivion to my wife, and when I said I could make my own apple pies she asked "Why would you want to do that?"  I frowned.  Just when she said that, her Oblivion guy was attacked by a goblin.  "Why would you want to beat some goblins to death?"  I asked.  She ignored me.


Are you the fucker that stole my cartridge?


I agree.  Get a PS2 and play FFXII.  It fixes those complaints.

Arx Fatalis was a great game. I should go back and finish it.

I picked back up my Madden 2007 (Wii) season and finished it out, then got sucked into the off season free agent signings, drafts and such. I played like 5 or 6 hours yesterday just plowing through the offseason and training camp, playing the College All-Star game and then busting through training camp to play my first preseason game for the 2008 Packers. Favre retired, and Aaron Rodgers did not impress. Despite the typical Madden flaws (too many INT's due to my sucking, too easy for the opposing offense to break a big one at least twice a game), I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm breaking it up with liberal doses of FIFA 07 for the Gamecube and some smattering of WoW and Zelda when the mood strikes.

Splinter Cell: DA for the 360 is what I've been playing lately with a little bit of Grim Grimoire (fun!) and Shadow Hearts: From the New World (doesn't look like this one is getting finished). 

I really like the NSA v. terrorist decisions you have to make in this Splinter Cell and I wish there were more of them.  Nothing like allowing a cruise ship to explode because your love interest would likely get shot if you stopped it.  Maybe I'm just less observant than I've been in the past, but I don't see quite as many viable routes through a level in this one as I have in the past.  This may be to some fairly restrictive level concepts, but there's also somewhat of a lack of creativity with what they're doing with the designs.  Of course, maybe they're just being more subtle, and I'm too thick headed to notice. 

Still, it's one of the few stealth games I enjoy and don't completely suck at (I'm sure I spend more time on levels and reload more than most people).  Easy as pie gamer points too.

Edit: And yah, Pip Boy gamer pic ftw.  Only pic package I've ever wanted to buy.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma kicks ass, and it's not hard so don't even start with that. NG1 for the NES was hard. This is cake. Normal mode is the perfect difficulty. If you want to be cheesy, Itzuma drop is an autokill and you're invincible while doing it.. how easier can you get?

I couldn't seem to get that to work on the Abrams tank.

Stand behind the box of afxs(?) cores on the left and pelt him, the tank shells will hit the front of the box and you won't take damage. He'll eventually start swinging around to hit you, but If you're playing on normal, all you have to do is dump arrows into him until the turret swivels to face you, wait a second, then roll to avoid the shell. Ignore the machine gun, it doesn't do enough damage to matter and it doesn't even spoil your aim. For the second tank, he fires twice, so just dodge both. It did take me a few tries, but it wasn't too bad. Remember after that, when you go up the  elevator, to use the save point on your right.

It's probably the most annoying fight in the game, I'll admit that some of the bosses are tricky.

Finished Shadow of the Colossus over the week.

Started Katamari Damacy over the weekend.

Other than that, still have FFXII, Bully and Eve on slow burn.

Thinking of picking up SimCity DS, as I've heard good things about it, but GHE:80s comes out next week...

Is SimCity DS out for US?

Indeed it is. Several folks around the office have picked it up here and have been busily trying to convince me to take the plunge as well.

I got pretty bored with SimCity DS. Kinda.

Mostly because there's better stuff out...

Speaking of Arx Fatalis.

http://it-he.org/

This man knows how to play a game right. His Deus Ex unwalkthrough is the best thing ever written.

Went back to Okami in order to test whether it is actually Atelier Iris 3 that is locking up my Sixaxis.  So far no lockup but I need more time.

Also a little GalCiv II: Dark Avatar.

All I have time for lately is playing demos from XBL. Last night it was 'The Bigs' and I quite liked it even though I don't really like baseball.

Hey, guess what I'm (still) playing?  :evil:

Actually starting to get a little burned out on it and seeing some flaws. I should write a review, but who would care at this point. Gamers are so of-the-moment.

Don't like the random-item chests, lots of place to explore with no rewards (the previous two always gave you something for being a good explorer). Just about 2/3rds of the way through now.

Just got in the PCG demo disc with Overlord, Lost Planet, Tomb Raider remake, and some other crap (GRAW2, Civ4 expansion, Skillground). So I'll probably do some demo stuff.

I am about to set up the Malaysian version of Perfect World or proxy myself into the Filipino version.  I haven't decided yet.

Holy shit why is Lost in Blue 2 so much harder than 1? And why is playing in Girl Mode the same as playing in God Mode?  :x

Lost Planet: meh. Seems ok, don't know that I'd waste my money on it, though. Crashed partway through. Nice demo loop, though.

Tomb Raider: Nicely done. Really captured the feel of the original, felt really action/jumpy while maintaining the feel of a puzzle game overall. Might have to put this one on the purchase list.

GRAW2: multiplayer-only demo. No interest.

Civ4 exp: It's only 75 turns of a campaign, I didn't waste time playing the demo since I'll be buying it anyway.

Overlord: Now this was a fun little demo. I normally cringe at AI-based games, but this was pretty well done. Hated when my pumpkin-headed guy with a sword and leather armor bit it. Nice graphics and sound. This one goes on the purchase list, much to my surprise.

Bought Catan on XBLA, won two games.

That guys System Shock walkthrough cracks me up every time I read it.

http://nigoro.jp/game/rosecamellia/rosecamellia.php

Needs a Wii port.

Tried that slap-the-bitch game but I wasn't able to punch her anywhere but the face or rip off her top, and I quit playing.  Reminded me I need to play Rule of Rose for some reason.

Blue Dragon demo.  I think I'm going to buy this just because of Uematsu-san's music in the white-sphere tutorial section.  Not for Toriyama's characters, he needs to branch out a bit.  The main guy is just Goku in a wifebeater, and the others are just as derivative.  Yawn.

Another game of Catan last night, followed by a marathon GalCiv2DA session.  My civ is fighting hard despite +25% population growth due to my not understanding a couple of the new features such as asteroid mining.  So far I have avoided reading the manual but I might end up doing it anyway.

Today I made some progress in Portrait of Ruin.

I'm playing Dragon Ball Z 2 Budokai Tenkaichi for the Wii. A fucking Dragon Ball game should not be this fucking fun or deep.

Somebody throw Haem a life preserver.

Fallout 1 - just finished
Fallout 2 - just started
Forza 2 - zomg. zoom.

My Fallout 2 session has been ending in much frustration lately, the combat is just too darn difficult especially when random encounters involve some dudes in Power Armours toting Plasma rifles, Mini guns and Gauss Rifles. Should've tagged that Outdoorsman skill  :|

Yeah, you get to a point in Fallout 2 where if you have not planned in advance to face the heavily armored opponents you start hitting a wall.  The good thing about Fallout 2 is that there are several ways to get over that hump.  Energy weapons, heavy weapons, aimed shots to the eyes, certain melee weapons, etc...  A solution is probably within your reach unless you've just been completely ignoring your combat skills.

I am Heavy Weapons specialist with Fast-shooting perk (No aimed shots, -1 AP on all shots)
I can burst twice and reload in the same round with my Avenger minigun, but it can't seem to penetrate the armoured targets, random encounters chew me up good. And I've lost like 1-2 companions already to their retarded 'stand & shoot' behavior while I dash for the exit.

I seem to remember having luck with an energy rifle.  Of course I had PE 10 to go with it, YMMV.

There are better heavy weapons than the Avenger.  For one thing there is a rocket launcher that fires armor piercing rounds and several others beyond that.

I got these options in my car trunk:
Bozar
Avenger Mini Gun
Bazooka

but considering I meet these Enclave patrols, I still bleed like crazy even when wearing a Brotherhood power armour, it's automatic 'run to the car' for me with their combined per round damage of over 100 (cry) on me. I even had Endurance of 10 to get mad HP.

Dunno what to tell you man, the game is not that difficult.  I've never managed to not beat it when I've started a run through it, heck I've done it un-armed and solo just for laughs (Slayer, once you get it, is easy mode btw, a critical kick to the jimmy is always good for a laugh as well).

I think you need more of whatever it was that lets you act first in combat (perception?).  I remember getting to a point where if I got to go first the battle was over because the opponents would all be dead by the end of my turn and I always got to go first.  Of course, I'm a min-maxing bastard. :-D

Having fun ignoring the main plot in Dead Rising and just cruising around the mall.  Some of the achievements are pretty fun to try and get (some on the other hand, are just annoying).  I never knew you could stick novelty masks on the zombies.

Just really trying to keep myself occupied until Persona 3 drops.

Went back to play some EQ2 with friends. The game is Amazingly playable now, though in the interest of fairness, I am running with a constant group.

Haha yeah melee isn't so bad early game. Punch groin, knock out, grab their ammo, move to next guy. ;)

Final Fantasy V. I've had it for ages, but I was never interested enough to complete it. Recently, however, I decided to take it 1 segment at a time and just slowly push through it. The Job system has been helpful. I'll play it for about 30-60 minutes once every few days, and each new time, to compliment the new story advances, I'll re-theme my party to new interesting Jobs. It helps keep things fresh.

My 360 has most of my attention recently- NCAA Football 2008, Fight Night 3, and Forza 2. Have neglected my GH II skills lately, which is bad. GH is just more fun when I have been drinking, and I have been depressingly sober the past few weeks.

Other than 360 games, I still get some BF2 in now and again. I am still grinding away toward my last 2 unlocks, but it is SLOW going. I really need to learn how to fly so I can whore up hundreds of points a game.

How are the BF2 servers? Still instant death to jump on a special forces map?  :roll: I'm trying to resist the urge to buy 2142 to fill the time between finishing Gothic 3 (probably a week or two) and Bioshock's release. Other options are a couple weeks of EQ2, though for thirty bucks I'm inclined to get a new game for now, maybe Stalker. Also thinking of getting back into Sacred, though probably not because that'd keep me busy for a couple months...

GalCiv II: Dark Avatar [PC].  Dangerous game, prevents sleep.

Overlord [360].  What Pikmin should have been.  Going for Full Corruption.

Okami [PS2].  This game is fucking awesome.  I started playing again (after being distracted by new releases for so long) specifically so I could determine if it was Atelier Iris 3 that was causing my Sixaxis to critically detach from my PS3, and I'm hooked again.  It is a bit early to say for sure, but I am almost convinced that AI3 is causing the Sixaxis problem since it doesn't happen in Okami.  In fact I don't ever disconnect at all while playing Okami.  Emulation, lolz.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin [DS].  Started locking up.  ANGER.  Nothing takes the wind out of my sails more than getting an hour past the last save and having to restart due to a bug.  I could have been playing Okami instead.

Now, my wife has slacked off on Oblivion a good bit because she has been playing Overlord.  In fact, she was the one that wanted Overlord, otherwise I would not have it (those of you playing the Home Game will remember that I am not buying things until October, and even then the top of the list is rather Atlusy).  Now she is getting into Overlord quite a bit and is, like with Oblivion, ahead of me.  Two nights ago she did point her finger at me in a threatening way and declare that I and her brother were wrong, and she would complete every single quest in Oblivion.  Nevermind that I didn't say she couldn't do it, but whatever.

Still playing Bomberman LIVE.  It's really well done.

I started tooling around with Dwarf Fortress -- or more specifically, learning why I love a mouse and hate ASCII games -- and Star Control 2. (I'm in a retro-mood). I did finish Okami, and of course there's the required GH2.

How long did Okami end up taking? I never finished, it was shaping up to be the longest adventure game I've ever played.

Wasting time with NWN2/EQ2 (most of the remaining achievements in Dead Rising are pain).  Ebgames relisted Persona 3 for next week.  :tantrum:

I have no idea -- I played it on and off for about two months, but sometimes I'd play for 10 hours on a Saturday then not touch it for a week, then tool around for 30 minutes. I also ran around exploring a lot.

Gorgeous damn game. Artwork and style is incredible.

I had similar experience to Morat - I think I'm about 50 hours into it but haven't played the final level yet (put it down in February when we moved). I always go for all the easter eggs and stuff though, so it prolly took me longer. I am itchin' for it again.

Servers are fine. However, I never set virtual foot into a Special Forces Map. I think I have played a total of about 45 minutes of SF. GodDAMN I hated that expansion. I play a lot at DrunkenMasters and the Oregon State clan servers- they play a lot of city maps (and I am a confirmed grunt), and the player skill puts me in the upper 40% or so, which prevents frustration and assists in point whoring  :-D

I think Okami took me around 40 hours to beat.  Not sure exactly.  I went into a kind of gaming trance because of the pretty.

Main story with no deviations then?

Nah, I finished nearly everything.  Very, very close to 100%.

Phil. You logged 65+ hours on Okami.

And, somehow, you logged more hours than me on Rogue Galaxy.

He probably leaves everything turned on like I do.  I have played only a couple of hours on some games and yet logged bajillions.

Oops, I think you're right.  Do I have a gaming problem?

No, you have a leaving stuff on problem.  Go check your oven.

So my brother gave me some XBLive points for my bday this weekend. I picked up Catan and Carscoconne (wtf sp.).  Both are crazy fun (have played neither before).  I can't beat the computer in Carsconne on elite, it douches me.

There seems to be a lack of players for XBLive Arcade games online.  It makes me sad.

I have been pretty much stuck on Overlord.  It gets better as it goes, and I didn't really expect much from it.  It has moderate depth, neat details and decent puzzles with multiple solutions, one of which is almost always to just send a horde of minions in to die horribly.  Minion management on a tactical level is important but not a game-killer if you can't do it properly, requiring some good coordination and quick thinking.  My wife charges in, axe a-flailin', shield spell burning and minions willy-nilly and she gets the job done, while I have a tightly-controlled, armed-to-the teeth squad of specialists.  In the end, the only real difference is that she loses most of her minions in any large battle and I usually lose zero-to-three, depending on the type, plus the bonus of keeping my Overlord out of the actual fighting.

I would suggest that if you are going to try for either the 100% or 0% Corruption Achievement, read/skim a FAQ or you could be restarting.  My wife was going for 0% and accidentally killed a shepherd, so she's out of contention.  I think I'm still on track for 100%.

I'm playing FFXII. It's fun though the balance seems kind of wonky to me. I keep having to stop the main story and go farm mobs for xps and license points because I'll go from kicking ass to being ass raped sometimes in the same dungeon.

I never did finish Rogue Galaxy but I may go back and do that too.

Odd, I never experienced that. Then again, I tried to do a lot of the hunts, so that would help with my character levels.

Been playing Disgaea with a little bit of Forza 2 and Dead Rising here and there.  And heh, interestingly enough with the comment I made above, I think I've hit a part in Disgaea where I need to hit the item world for a bit (too bad you can't get crimes in this one).  The mobs I'm fighting are all level 17 and half my party is 5 levels back :(.

Digging my teeth into Beyond the Sword now. The Mods and new random events are fun. Can't wait until Fall From Heaven is ported to BtS.

I've been staring at the still sealed box of Odin Sphere a lot lately.

Hmmm...haven't really been branching out at all lately.

Playing some sporadic DOW, but other than that, it's just

DATH'REMAR!!!  ~sigh~  I think I need to make my own guild.  Primary requirement:  Your name does not say "I am a 13 year old dumbass".  Secondary requirement:  You are not a selfish thieving asshole.  Tertiary requirement:  When faced with the choice between helping a fellow guildie complete some quest that gives you no benefit, or running off and grouping with strangers or soloing...there is no choice there.  You know what you should do, and you do it.  Cause you were there once.  And you're not a selfish asshole.

Oh, and you should like to give adorably gruff dwarf hunters presents of non-combat pets he doesn't have yet.  Not a requirement.  Just a "nice-to-have" quality.  ^^ 

I played Company of Heroes pretty much all day, yesterday.  I suck at it.

Something about the game though, makes me want to keep playing and get better.  You definitely have to change a bit from the typical RTS approach.

That it is beautiful doesn't hurt the appeal either.

I have trouble keeping myself away from Titan Quest with IT.

Playing Prince of Persia: Rival Swords on the Wii. Good game so far.

Should be playing Persona 3.  Instead, it's going to bite into my Blue Dragon time next month.

On topic, I just beat Devil May Cry. The first one.

Hmm, Marvel Trading Card Game..what a mouthful.

Shouldn't they be worried that their acronym will be too close to Magic?

Anyway, I seriously plan to snatch up the next CIV expansion as long as it gets some positive word-of-mouth here.

Other than that, I really need to get back and finish conquering the planet in DOW.  I love being Space Marines.  But I think I need to track down one of those mods that eliminates the number cap on some of the units.  I want an army of terminators with apothecaries backing them up.  Oh, and I hate that I can't attach skull probes to a unit that has a leader already attached.  They should be two separate things, since some of the command units can't see invisible.

The new Civ expansion is worth it. They added some new features you can play around with, scenarios that change the scope of the game, and random events spice things up once in a while.

I went back towards Fall From Heaven 2 a bit too soon to give a detailed analysis, but what I saw I really liked.

Cool.  Now the question is, are all the new features hard-coded, or can I disable them if I hate them?

The random events can be disabled, of course.

Everything else is hardcoded, if you don't use the new techs/tactics, some other Civ still might. No counterintelligence for example means leaving enemy agents a free reign.

Started playing a bit of WoW again, though not too much. Finished Max Payne again about a week ago and went straight into Max Payne 2, which I finished tonight. Those games still hold up really well visually and viscearally, as long as you don't mind the fact that you're really just doing the same shit over and over.. but then so are most games.

Have been playing a bit of BF2142 which I picked up for half price (Aussie version with no spyware FTW!), I've unlocked all the generic grunt upgrades, and up to the good Assault rifle, now working on getting a special ops guy out of the sniper class. The game is surprisingly fun.

Also, looks like it's going to be back into my re-plays of Far Cry and HL2 for my against-CPU doses of pewpewblammo, now that Max is done with.

MWUAHAHAA!

Trust me, I'll be using counter-intel extensively.  lol

Good on the random events being flaggable.  I don't usually like that kind of thing (unless I saved right before it).  I used to hate the random career cards in Sims 2.

Did I hear correctly that you can mix-n-match leaders and civs now?

Also, kinda on topic, is there any DIY way to mod a PS2 to play Asian games?  The BF seems uncertain as to how to find a place to do it.  His geek ed is still somewhat lacking.  Luckily, he makes up for it in another ways :D

Weaning myself off of Overlord with Final Fantasy Tactics.  Last night I somehow thought it would be a good idea to wade into battle with a monk, chemist, oracle, black mage, and time mage.  Actually I probably would have been OK if my one guy with Revive wasn't taken out, and my chemist knew how to use phoenix down, as it was I lost the oracle and black mage so I just powered it off and went to bed.  Even more annoyingly, I blinded several of the enemy and they still landed hits every time.  Either blind isn't crippling or I was unlucky.

Checked with a custom game in Beyond the Sword today. You don't seem to be able to mix and match Civilizations and leaders, Xerapis.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves.  Unlocking multiplayer is extremely lame.  It is fun but it gives the feeling that IS didn't really try very hard.

Just picked up Shining Force for the Virtual Console. I thought I'd played this game way back when, but I hadn't. And it does kick some ass. Of course, there's a smattering of Prince of Persia: Rival Swords for the Wii and FIFA 07 for the Cube until Madden 08 and FIFA 08 come out.

Shining Force was fun. The combat itself is not very complex or tactical but it has just enough RPG elements to keep it interesting. The later installments didn't really do much to improve the overall experience sadly.

I got Mario Strikers to play with some friends of mine. It's pretty much exactly what I wanted - a fun multiplayer game that is fairly quick to pick up and play, but still an actual game. I'm still pining for a Tennis game though. If I got a Wii tennis game that was similar to Wii Sports but let you move your guy and had some more options I don't think I'd ever stop playing.

Yesterday I also beat Kid Icarus with a friend of mine. I did the last castle level and he did the final stage. Yes, that Kid Icarus.

Still slowly trekking through FFV. Fun job system; I don't care for the story or cast, though.

Hopefully some Quake Wars all this week now that con-weekend-from-hell is over.

Managed to do lots of things other than play vidya games over the weekend, but I got some time in with Final Fantasy Tactics.  Considering I'm once again just fighting things and dicking around with the job system, it's looking like I will have a hard time finishing this and finally marking it off the list.

Also, after a conversation with schild, I fired up La Pucelle and I think FFT is going to go back to the shelf again.  I find that I'm really into leveling up my items via purification, but I'm going to have to read the manual (or gamefaqs) again to figure out how this helps me.

It helps mostly by giving you lots of xp on whatever items were worn by the person firing off the purification. Making large circles and summoning gods or whatever with the purification helps as well. Bonus points if the first purification starts a multiple purification cascade miracle.

I personally disliked the sort of "hands-off" leveling scheme of the game, but I liked the characters and writing.



As for me, I just bought the entire Shadowhearts series tonight. NO IDEA when I will ever get to play it, but at least I have it now.

I might try to make some progress in Odin Sphere, in between Heroclix and EQ2.

I'm actually taking a break from WOW right now because my primary WOW buddy had to head back to the States for a couple weeks because his grandfather died.

So I've been playing some Overlord and some Titan Quest.  I had upgraded to Immortal Throne, but then couldn't find a decent trainer for it.  When it comes to single player, I'm pretty much just on cheat mode these days :P  So I downgraded, and am having lots of fun WAR/SPI.  Nice thing about endless life/energy: I can pick my outfit based on what looks cool only :D

Speaking of trainers, anyone know a reliable one for Overlord that works with no-cd?  I'm having no luck.

I played through most of the Eternal Sonata demo last night.

It was reasonably fun.  Fighting was involved, the story and pacing are extremely FFantasy though.  If you like that sort of thing, it will be fun for you.

Edit: Stranglehold demo tonight, woot!

Why didn't someone tell me Painkiller was fun?  I played the demo last night on steam and laughed with glee as vampire demon things hurled across the room and stuck to the walls as I shot them with my wooden stake gun.  Looks like a great dumb shooter, and I love me some dumb shooting.  For $10 I couldn't pass it up.

The point of levelling up items is so they can be combined later on to make super items.  Most important is to combine the bits that level your parameters, the ones that give you passive bonuses.  Forget what they're called because I haven't played the game in years, but you can make some pretty hardcore items.

I later found something talking about how the game changes after your people reach level 100.  But in the short term I figured out that I really need to combine the stat-leveling attributes.  Somehow leveling up the monsters and items to do this has managed to become time-consuming.

Playing Makai Kingdom now.  Sigh.

Soul Nomad is out in like a month too. Oh, and Persona 3 next week MAYBE HARHARHARHAHRAR.

Well, I finished Final Fantasy 12. It was extremely easy to beat the last boss I noticed. In fact, I pretty much just watched the battle and occasionally picked up the controller to cast a dispell or something.

I'm sort of stuck. I may play FFX and finish it, but then again, Persona 3 comes out in about a week, and two weeks after it if memory serves Bioshock, Stranglehold, Dynasty Warriors:Gundam, and Blue Dragon come out. So I'm afraid to start anything new. Then of course there's the new Civ expansion, as well as a project I've been meaning to start writing a database for a pen and paper RPG I play and will be running next summer or so. (The old 2nd ed D&D Birthright campaign world.)

Just finished a couple goes of the Stranglehold demo.  You should check it out, damn fun.

I wonder if they'll be a firefight replay mode.

Yah, I think I'll ask for this one for my birthday.  Max Payne style action with destructive environments and more of an action movie flair.

Played the Eternal Sonata demo also.  I think I'll pick this title up also.  The combat isn't spectacular, but it's fairly interesting and the game is absolutely gorgeous (must have a tolerance for anime style art). I didn't see a lot of potential depth to this title either, but it looks to be a solid jRPG and fun. 

I still have all my Birthright rule books (pretty much everything that was put out).  I really liked that setting.  Shame it didn't catch on.

Painkiller is even better than expected.  I played the hell out of it the other night and am looking forward to more.  The way levels, objectives, card collecting is set up I can see myself playing it off an on for quite some time.  Lots of replay.

Soul Nomad!  I can't wait, it's my most anticipated game of the year.

Also, if Persona 3 isn't released this week I'm swimming to Japan to choke people.

Really? Nice. I've been playing it. There's no press embargo. Let me say - it's really well done. I get my actual review copy this week. Gig, the main enemy, is one of the best villains since Kefka or Bob Page.

I'm jealous. 

I saw a trailer for it when the localization was first annouced and have been foaming at the mouth since.  After playing Disgaea 1 and 2 I'm psyched for anything NIS releases and Soul Nomad looks to me like their first serious effort since Disgaea 2. 

What happened to Dragaon Shadow Spell?  Are we still getting that too?  Or do I need to learn Japanese before the end of the year?

Here's a post I made at NISA's board:


Well, part of a post. It seems that #7 will be Disgaea 3. Also, add to the list Operation Darkness - which hasn't been announced by anyone.

Basically, I think we're SOL.

I know it's unnecessary but I'd love to see Disgaea DS come stateside.  I don't own a PSP and I really don't want one, but portable Disgaea would be wonderful.  I may actually take Puzzle Quest out of my DS for Disgaea.

That list of games we probably won't get makes me sad.  Almost sad enough to start learning Japanese.  I don't know what I'll do if Disgaea 3 is not localized.

Disgaea 3 is inevitable.

This leads easily into me saying that I have been playing Makai Kingdom a lot.  A lot.

This week, I are mostly been playing System Shock 2 having finally, finally, got it running under XP.



I have never played it before.

Yah, that game is an unholy pain to get working. I got it to run using a launching tool but all of the videos display themselves upside down.   :-P

Persona 3 today. Woot.

I had it running for a while (with upside down video, too, I probably used something you linked to) but iirc it started dying about halfway through.

Just ran through a few solo instances in EQ2 last night (eq2.wikia.com formerly eq2i.com ftw...especially as the ingame browser homepage!). Cool stuff, but Dire Hollow needs to up the Named spawns for the solo instance. Started the Bloodline Chronicles stuff but pretty much cockblocked out of that content, glad I didn't pay for it. Maybe I'll give Harclaves another shot now that I have some better gear...though I also dingered 35 last night  :cry:

I get no movies at all as I disabled the codex - kept crashing at that point.  Movies are on youTube anyway so as long as I don't watch the end one first I'll be okay.  I ended up getting it running by setting the compatibility options to Win 2000.  Not 95/98 which it's written for, but 2000 which it's meant to be incompatible with. 

Forza 2.  I ditched that shitty Miata, downgraded my Civic to a D class and swept both D championships, put some better parts in and cleared the 200HP challenge, then did the same thing with the 300HP challenge.  That Civic is a monster.  I was even halfway through sweeping the 400HP challenge with it, with only ~368HP no less, when I realized it was 0130.

Beat Devil May Cry 1, on to Twilight Princess for the Wii...I'm really behind. At this rate I won't play a new game when it comes out for a while, if ever.

Rune Factory is eating my baby.

Since I wandered upstairs for something, here's the list.

Persona 3.  It is nice.

Forza 2.  Did all I could with the Civic VTi and jerked around for a bit until I decided I had to win that Heavyweight tournament, so I bought myself a 2007(?) Charger.  Black.  Put orange flames on the front.  It was tight, and I took that thing around to quite a few wins.  Decided to spend some time in a neat Peugeot, the white one with the jaguar head on the side.  That one started sucking on the faster tracks, like Sebring, so I am going to have to find another ride.

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.  It is more fun than I care to admit.  I blame Mythos.

Various minor things, too, amounting to just a few minutes.  One of these is Boogie, which is also more fun than I care to admit.

New arrivals include Disgaea 2, Valkyrie Profile 2 and the PSP Valkyrie Profile.  Now I have to get a PSP.  Also downloaded Super Metroid today, which reminds me how I wish the Wii Classic Controller was a bit larger.

Still enjoying EQ2. We've been doing some Heritage Quests and dungeoning, at least until Tragny and gimpyone outlevel me in another couple weeks.

I tend to stick with games for months at a time. The bulk of this year has been EQ2 and Gothic 3, did play through FEAR (fun to reload and play through set pieces a few times) and MUA (which I need to go back and finish). But I think that's it this year.

Of course, the EQ2 thing is going onto the back burner in 3...2...1...Bioshock.

Forza 2 and GH2 on 360, and a fair amount of WoW still.  The occasional round of Monster Madness and EDF2017 when I just want to play for 15 mins.

With Forza, I've kinda hit the point where the races and series are getting a little too long for 'pick up and play' kind of gaming - oddly, I can still spend a good solid hour or 2 working on a paint scheme tho.

No matter - Bioshock(360) will likely consume all of my gaming time in short order.

Bioshock.

Despite this weeks awesome, AWESOME set of releases, I am ONLY playing Bioshock.

But I do get my new DS today. Which will be _hot_.

I'm thinking of getting a DS because I want to play that game where you grow stuff and tame bugs and everything.  It looks splendiferious.

I should be playing Civ4 BtS or SpaceForce: Rogue Universe.

Instead I re-subbed to CoX.

But hey, at least I'm actually playing a game again.

Rune Factory! Xanthippe and I are playing. It is fun and more rpg-ish than the other Harvest Moons.

No, you should be playing Bioshock.

SpaceForce: Rogue Universe any good? It tempts me on Steam and I still have to wait three days at  least for my Bioshock copy.

I just picked it up today - I preordered the limited edition, despite not having a system capable of running it, out of guilt for missing the boat with System Shock.

Tthe endless parade of reviews spewing breathless superlatives has unnerved me. Mass love-ins trip my bullshit detector.


I don't know. I've been on crunch for... hell, I don't even know anymore. Since it was released, at least. I haven't had the brains to dig into something new.

I have a great love of East European games, though. They haven't lost that sense of design adventurism PC games had in the late 80s-early 90s. "You think we should put a limited ground combat RTS in our Elite-style space fighter/trade sim? And roleplaying missions? Sure, why not!" (That's Space Rangers 2, available from Paradox's  Gamersgate.com.)

Don't forget the PRISON SIMULATOR

Still playing WoW. Doing arenas, etc. Boring, I know.

I want to play Bioshock. I am going at lunch to get it.

IF TWO WORLDS IS NOT GOOD (which I have the sneaking suspicion that it will be terrible, like Dungeon Lords was), I SWEAR I WILL PUNCH SOMEONE. FUCK.

Despite the fact I've said it sucks like 10 times, prepare to get those knuckledusters ready.

I was eagerly clutching my copy of Bioshock on the way back to my office. My supervisor, enroute to a meeting, asked me what it was. "Bioshock," I said. He kinda looked blankly (not his fault, he's a mac gamer). "System Shock 3," I added. His eyes lit up..."That game was really cool!", alluding to System Shock, which we co-purchased when it was released and we were both broke (he was a pc gamer then). On eight floppies or whatever.

I think a demo came out today.  I'm not sure if it's real/works. (http://browse.files.filefront.com/Two%20Worlds%20Official%20Demos/;2052308;/browsefiles.html)

I played a demo of Two Worlds a while ago and it was pretty mediocre.  I have no idea why I bought it.  I have a feeling it'll live on my special never opened games shelf.  If I do open it, I have a opened and not played more than an hour or so corner next to the stairs where I keep things like dead spiders and Dungeon Siege 2.

Persona 3.





Also, a bit of EQ2. I can almost make armor that is usable!

Where are you in EQ2?  Bat Country is on Oasis.  Check the EQ2 forum for names to add if you want an invite.

Negative, we're on Crushbone or something.

Crushbone is a WoW PVP server.  Which, I might add, if you play on then I can possibly be of assistance.

I am very fucking confused.

They're the bad men on the gank server. Don't pay them any heed.

 :evil:

I am very glad that I misremembered Crushridge as Crushbone.  It means the pills are working.

I was two seconds away from quoting you, and holding up a book of lore, cussing like a madman.

Good catch.

I get my Veteran's Plate Bracers today on my warrior! /dance

And then I get no time to play BioShock or WoW or anything while I'm in Seattle for PAX.

Take your DS, play some Pokemans.

I'm actually playing a game, and not a demo! BIOSHOCK'D

I am playing 'goddamn I hope I can get Bioshock to not crash', Madden, and some GH II.

Persona 3.  I figured out that my team is healed every time I go back to the entrance.  Coupled with it being the night before the full moon, and I have been fighting like crazy.

As for Bioshock, we have decided we need to get the boy out of the house so we can play it properly.

Persona 3 + Bioshock.  I don't think I'll have a gaming combo this good all year.  Although it looks like Persona 3 will last me ages, so, it's possible. BTW, Yukari gets Media at 22. 

I feel good that I'm not hitched to some MMO, while these games are around.  Although, I think I'm still paying for EQ2.  Is that card game thing in yet?

No, she should be playing Rune Factory!

She?

Er...

Why did I think Signe when I saw Stormwaltz?

Sorry about that.

Because you miss me.  I miss you, too.  (http://terranuts.com/forums/images/smilies/sad3.gif)  We need a new MMO.

RUNE FACTORY!!

Still in closed beta...on the production servers :|
I guess Bat Country is going to shrink to trag, gimp and I?  :cry:

No, I'm still playing.  I meant a brand new girly MMO for us girls and Yegolev.  And you, too, you big weirdy beardy blousey Nancy boy.

I don't need no steenkin' new mmo. I've settled on EQ2, I'm happy dinking and doinking around on there.

We need a new MMO with paintball and camels and farming and fashions.  Think the Sims meets ATiTD with a dash of Shadowbane.

No camels.  I can still hear them screaming.

Forza 2, Marvel Alliance and Overlord. Have to wait till next month for Bioshock due to lack of fundage.

I am also reliving my youth and playing Galaga. The only thing missing is the smell of the pizza place and missing 7th period Chemistry from playing too long.

You know damn well that if we find something with PvP AND fashion, you are so there.

Llamas then. 


Jeff Minter should make a new game.

Since playing Rune Factory, I cannot figure out why no one has made an MMO for the DS.

Surely it's just a matter of time?

That would be truly awesome.

Nintendo doesn't allow patching on their systems. That's why Maple Story DS is taking so long.

Also, a friend code based MMO.

You must be joking.

Does everything have to have a friend code?

No, wait.. Mario Kart DS doesn't, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl doesn't, right? 

Yes, they both do.

i'm back on neverwinter nights 2 prepping a new char for the expansion release.

Frenzied Berserker for supreme cleave

Wouldn't you rather smash your testicles with a hammer?

I'm mostly playing Zombie Survival in Garry's Mod.

Started a clan with a friend named Shoop Da Whoop ([SDW]). We have a pretty offensive graffiti tag.

He just released Space Giraffe on XBL, what more do you want from the man?

I'm leaving the country in two days and nobody in St. Louis has a damn copy of Etrian Odyssey!  :mob:  What am I supposed to play on the plane?  Pokemon?  pfffff.

Isn't chatting of any sort restricted for wi-fi too?  That would kind of kill a standalone MMO.

It would be interesting to see some sort of minigame addon to an MMO for the DS perhaps.  Like say you are at a meeting and you login to <insert MMO of choice here> DS and do some action rpg romping with your avatar and maybe pickup some stuff that will be useful when you login to the main game later.

Although I could think of many reasons why some people would hate that.

I called or looked online for just about every store around - seriously, how can no one have Etrian Odyssey?  Where did you guys pick up yours?

I have a very Atlusy GameStop.  Oddly, they did not have Persona 3 on release, but they have almost every Atlus and NIS game I know about just sitting on the shelves.

Maybe look through my list of stores:
http://del.icio.us/Yegolev/gamestore

That arm-wrestle-breaking game was on Countdown the other night. Now my girlfriend thinks of that game when the company Atlus is mentioned. This makes me inexplicably happy.

HERRO?!

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.  I have no excuses, it's just incredibly looty.  PING TRING CLANG FLOP WHOOSH!
Persona 3.
Bioshock.
Forza 2.

For some inexplicable reason gamestop/eb is not carrying Etrian Odyssey as a used game.  It's not on their site at all and it's never in stores.  I believe newegg had it last I looked but I don't know as you'd find it at a brick and mortar anywhere.

One of the stores in my area Probably have it.

Etrian Odyssey was printed in very, very small numbers. Good luck.

The JP one is available on play-asia.com, but that might be nonoptimal.

GameQuestDirect seems to have it.. or at least they're not saying it's sold out. 

Persona 3 continues to own me.  Bioshock as well.

Persona 3 makes me sad, because I know that it will eventually end.

I have not been this hooked on a game in a Long Time.


And I mean, come on, that intro is Pure Unadulterated Awesome. I watch the damn thing every time I go to play the game. What was the last game to even come close with to having such a great intro? I just wish the soundtrack had an extended version of that intro song.

I would say I'm playing Bioshock but I haven't touched it in 3 days at this point. My gaming ennui continues.

Is this the intro?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzHpCOPsVbo

If so it's not that good.

I'm not arguing, but do you have an example of a better one?  I am sure I have seen a better intro, I just can't recall what it was.  Comparing this particular medium is going to be full of apples, oranges and star fruit.

Onimusha 3. Dawn of War was cool too.

I lolled.

Onimusha 3 was pretty cool.  I still get a kick out of the StarCraft intro.

Onimusha 3 was completely ridiculous. Sure, the quality of the animation was high. But meh, I thought it was just damned silly.

Where is your love of JP fantasy and ninja?  Do you have anything to add?  Maybe this should be its own thread.  I will try to come up with something myself.

Onimusha's intro (and really everything about it) was schlocky historical sci-fi. Just absolutely silly while taking itself completely seriously.

I have to concur. There's some interesting design tricks going on in there, but nothing that makes me go OMFG BESTEST!

That Persona 3 has some interesting things, but it's creepy.

NWN2 intro was probably the only high point of the game.

Has anyone else played the Skate demo?  The control scheme and gameplay are light-years ahead of the Tony Hawk setup.  I might very well break my 'No EA games at retail' rule for this one.

Hellgate London is published by EA now :(

In the future, all restaurants are EA.

I'm not saying it has the bestest ever graphics, I just really dug the (musical and graphical) style of it. And then, thinking on it, I could not recall an intro (offhand) I could compare to it.

To me, that's more creative than what some games do with crazy FMV and graphics and whathaveyou.

Yeah, not of big fan of any of Blizzards stuff; big-time graphics and they try So Fucking Hard to make a fanservice joke half the time.


I mean, seriously, now that we're on the subject, people might as well start posting their favorites if possible.


Also, you automatically lose if you post something from Metal Gear Solid. FFS, who wants to watch a 15 minute intro to a game that you want to Play?

People want to play Metal Gear Solid? I've played it. I can't see why you'd play for any reason other than the cutscenes. The gameplay is dick.

I never played past the first MGS, and most of the gameplay annoyed me.

It seems like a great game, I've got the xbox version (Substance or whatever). Between the retarded controls and ZOMGTHUMBSTICK, I couldn't get past the first level. I made it pretty far into and really wanted to enjoy it. Great game except the controls imo. And the non-gameplay parts go on for a bit too long.

As for the music from Persona3...there's no accounting for taste :P

It's got nothing to do with taste. Compared to me and Straz, you're an old guy with rock roots who wouldn't know good japanese music if it kicked him right in the teeth.

Now, granted, if I were you, I'd probably feel the same way. But I'll grant this - this is gaming, and I give more elbow room for music to be tolerable -> good -> great because of it.

MSG2 had some great gameplay in it. It just took way too much of Raiden's sandy pussy to get to. The swordfighting with the boss at the end was the shiznit. There was decent gameplay in 2. Now MSG 1 or any of the others? I've no idea.

Please stop making assumptions about my musical taste. I've already listed a couple good Japanese bands elsewhere. It's got everything to do with taste, I simply didn't like the track.

I don't go around calling you a young trendy japanophile, I assume you have some other interests. Please give me the same respect in return.

I said it was a matter of taste, not that the music sucked. You do understand the difference between fact and opinion, yes?

While we're talking intros... Wild Arms, anybody?

In Persona,  the intro to the game itself, not the music video, is very cool and stylish.

Also, Blue Dragon and Lair are currently disappointing me a great deal.

I should have Wild Arms 5 soon.  I put cheap shipping on it for some reason.  Maybe to teach myself a lesson.

There is a contingent of people saying that they've finally gotten it right with Wild Arms 5. In fact, they're saying it's better than Wild Arms 1. I haven't booted up the game to confirm this. But most of them also say that most of the soundtrack is... whistling. I really need to start playing it.


I think some of the problem here is that I've heard SO MUCH shitty Japanese music (and believe me, 99.9% of it is shit, it's probably more shit than most of the modern American music), that I've built up some kind of tolerance - much like I have for games themselves. That's to say, the jazzy techno jpop in Persona 3 is a goddamn breath of fresh air.

Played Wild Arms 5 for a couple of hours today and, so far, I like it.  It's early yet so who knows if I'll get tired of it.  The battles, even the couple of boss battles, I've had have been quick and relatively easy.  The ARMs are still cool... God, I still love guns the best... and I've always enjoyed their battle system.  It comes with a little art book but I don't enjoy this sort of art, really... just this style of Jrpgs.  I hope it's as good as 1, which was one of my favourite console rpgs so far.  Tonight Righ is going to go see Acid Temple Mother Guru Guru or something insane sounding like that.  Evidently, it's what happens when a Japanese psychedelic rock band falls into a vat of Kraut rock.  Sounds delicious.

Did the other Wild Arms games allow you to turn off both music and voices seperately?  I don't remember that.  It's a wonderful feature and more Jrpgs should implement it.  Now we just need to convince them to let us zip through the magic animations.  After seeing them for the thousandth time, it gets a wee bit frustrating.

Edit:  Oh, you CAN zip through the long battle animations and stuff!  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/dope.gif)

When my wife listened to the "nip-hop" song in the dorm lobby, with the Japanese guy rapping, she said "What the hell is that?"

Forced away from my consoles and PC, starting last Friday and continuing until Saturday evening.
Etrian Odyssey
Baten Kaitos

I always loved the Mechwarrior Intros.

Alas, not all the games were as good.

I just finished playing through BG2 + Expansion again. Reminded how bad the expansion is (though I do like Watchers Keep), which left a sour note.

Playing BF2 from time to time, but not recently.

Thinking of playing ADOM again once I finish my current batch of essays.

The BG2 expansion sucked? Really?

I haven't played it in years. I just remember my Cavalier and his pimped-out Carsomyr Holy Avenger just bent the game over and made it cry.

Also, did 99% damage to the final boss with 1 hit. That was funny.

I thought it was generally accepted that Fallout 2 has the best intro of any game ever.

Deus Ex.

In between double honor AV bouts, I played GH2 this weekend.  I'm stuck on Psychobilly Freakout on Expert.  I know once I get past that, Rush will be one-shotted.  Also some Tiger Woods 08, which plays nice, but I was disappointed I won my first tournament.  It really handicaps the CPU players if you do badly the first two days.  Then since I learned how to play (and play the course) on day 3 and 4... I ended up winning Prince, with 50something strokes over for the 4 days.  I shouldn't have won, or even placed top 20.

The part that killed me on that song initially was the swap between Red + Blue to Yellow + Orange and back again, real fast. I can slog my way through it every time now, but it's still a pain in the ass.

What still kills me is Freya on Expert - fuck those fucking chord changes right in their asshole.

I'm still plowing through WoW, trying to get my warrior decked out for arenas. I also played some Fury last night, which is a lot more fun when you have people who are good that you're playing with, as opposed to random PUGs - I can actually play a healer and know I'm doing something, other then heal idiots who run out of line of sight and get assist trained as soon as the round starts.

So, I'm playing Blue Dragon and I just finish killing off the boss in a two-hour dungeon.  I equip the new items I just got, and attempt to warp out when suddenly my 360 tells me the disc is dirty and kicks me out of the game.  Things like this never happen when you read a book.

Some people might like it.. not me. The story is blindingly linear, predictable, short and stupid. The areas have no atmosphere at all. It's all go to x, kill/get some things, go to y, have a crappy dream sequence with that Solar thing that looks like it was made out of pool noodle things, do a really crappy (and meaningless) character development fight in the pocket plane, then pop out again, go to x2, kill/get y2..

The areas have no atmosphere and the level design is just retarded. The Fire Giants Keep is simply awful. Random traps everywhere, many fights, all housed in a simple building wich is basicly one big room.

Then this all comes with a complete lack of side quests, NPC character development, any real new NPCs (Sarevok is really not that different to Korgan)..

Meanwhile the PC and party members are all stupid powerful and encounters become increasingly farcical. Everything is either silly-easy, exploitable (Whirlwind attack, traps) or just silly. I prefer a long fight with a lot of back and forth and some strategy for encounters based on my group (Like where I used Korgan with +save vs spell stuff to lure mind flayers into a room where my thief will backstab them one by one) not some silly combination where I kill enemies without thought in seconds, or die unless I execute specific combinations.

So yeah. No side quests, no good level design, no fun in the way battles are approached, nearly everything being able to see through my characters stealth (with the cloak of non-detection), increasing player and enemy power making the PCs, NPCs and Enemy characters have little or no connection to the world-poorly realised or otherwise, increasingly forced necessity of mages...

And I think Cespenar is really flawed. I love the guy and think his voice acting is great, but the fact you all of a sudden have about 50 new magical items every time you step foot anywhere is stupid. You don't have to go out of your way to get them, they becoem meaningless with the over abundance about, and they have no history at all. Why the fuck does that Monk have Hindo's hand? I scoured the world for the Vorpal sword and all I have to do is pick up some stupid halberd (The Ravager!) and some other item that is found somewhere for no explicable reason whatsoever and all of a sudden I have something that does basicly the same thing but better. The Vorpal sword felt epic and took time and effort to attain. It had a whole lot of story attached too, and you're just going to trivialise it with this random weapon right away? Free loot every everyone every three seconds just for the sake of it makes it completely pointless. You're god damn lucky that the human skin I spent all that effort getting wasn't trivialised in a similar manner.

But yeah. I could go on but won't... I'd give BG2 high marks, but without including Watcher's Keep (which rocked rather nicely except for the final boss - I don't bother fighting him as he's the anticlimax of the year, I let him remain unseen and just send the silly helmites in instead) I felt the expansion was a piece of shit.

You could be right, especially with the mage reliance thing. I remember needing lots of counterspell-type bullshit seemingly every other fight to get defenses down.

My solution was to just continue using Imoen, Nalia, and Aerie (who I completed the original game with).

Yeah, 3 mages. You'd be amazed how little I actually used their spells though.

Bioshock PC
Two Worlds PC
Dungeons and Dragons Tactics (PSP)

and Im getting ready to resub to City of Heroes/Villians for my kids.

Dawn of War series. Steam had a killer package deal and I love the 40K universe. Kind of felt guilty for not playing em up to this point.

Medieval II, playing the Ruskies. Tough faction to get off the ground, but a good challenge.

WoW raids twice a week, with a dash of TR here and there.

More of a "what I have bought" than "what I am playing", but here goes.

Bioshock in tiny amounts.  Wife goes to sleep quickly.
Loco Roco.  The boy loves Loco Roco.
Medievil, mostly to try out the PS-on-PSP game thing.
Bought Europa Universalis III for $9.95, trying to install it now but the boy is pulling me out of my chair to go play Loco Roco.

I was playing Warhawk for about a week before getting a little pissed and bored.  It's a great game just rough around the edges.  The lack of mouse and keyboard kind of frustrates me as well.

So, I picked Persona 3 back up and am currently about half way through.  I've also played some Bioshock here and there and would like to finish it up this weekend.

I play Planet Puzzle league at work too but shhh...

Playing Madden NFL 08 and Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii. The Mario Strikers is way too much fun on the first go-round.

The boy has taken over Loco Roco.  He's finished more than one level and unlocked some things.  Basically, the PSP is his.
The wife is working hard to determine why The Sims keeps crashing.
House is being painted.
I am getting yelled at because I had a weeklong vacation in Austin.
I think I am going to have to take a break from playing trying to play anything for a week or two.

Will be playing Heavenly Sword in two hours.  If it manages to suck like every other game I've anticipated in the last few months then it's back to Bioshock or Dynasty Warriors Gundam.

Fucking Peggle.

Finished Bioshock, using my small free game time to finish GHII and build a Dwarf Fortress/

Little bits of WoW when I have spare time (daily quests for the wife's epic flyer).

Just finished Far Cry. I played through it once before, but this time was on my new gaming rig in widescreen. Damn that game is really something special. Looking forward to Crysis (as long as it supports DX9/XP).



Now, back to my second playthrough of HL2. Hope to finish it in time so that I can run through Lost Coast, then Ep1 and Ep2 all sequentially. Though with the wait for EP2, so much for fast, episodic content, eh?

Also looking forward to playing through Republic Commando for a second time. (to see how it is on the new rig). Need to finish Doom3 expansion sometime as well, but I've been enjoying not pounding nails through my dick.

Then of course, there's Prey, Deus Ex, CoDs 1&2 again, COD4, Painkiller, STALKER, FEAR + expack...

I just cheated my way through HL2 since I've yet to finish it.  Just started Ep1 as well in anticipation.

With my Vonage Wireless Router behaving badly,I have no net access on my 360.

I'm so fucked. There's just too much gaming and too little time.

After finishing Bioshock I of course pre-ordered the Orange Box, and am now spending a little time trying desperately to not suck at TF2.

Beside that I picked up Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines for $9 since I never played it and am enjoying it quite a bit. Was intending to replay HL:Ep 1 but I doubt that will happen since I also picked up Jeanne D'Arc on the PSP which I'm finding strangely addictive. Trying to get all this off my gaming plate by end of Oct. for Hellgate: London.

Of course I still have to finish:
* Forza 2
* Fight Night Round 3
* RB6:LV
* GHII
and my Pinata garden is sadly neglected.

All that and Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and now that I have a PS3 the backlog of PS2 titles I never got too (Persona 3 fpremost.)

Man I need a clone...

Hrm.  What's the selection of fighters like in Fight Night?  That's one of those games I've never played, but really ought to.

Well... Fight Night 3 is the best of the bunch, but it probably has the weaker selection of fighters. 2 had more classic fighters (especially Marciano and Liston), and a couple of other cool guys (Mayweather, Chris Byrd, Jesse James Leja, Mayorga, Mosely).

Besides that, both have the standard stuff --- Ali, Frazier, Gatti and Ward, LaMotta and Ray Robinson, Hagler and Leonard, Duran, Holyfield, Hopkins, Roy Jones, etc., etc..

No Lennox Lewis, Tyson, or Butterbean. Sorry.

I'll have to bargain-bin FN2.  Fighter selection is paramount to me, and any game with Chris Byrd in it is love.

Yep he's cool. Gotta love my southpaw brothas.

Forgot to mention that both games lack Klitschko (who definitively kicked Byrd's ass, unlike others). Maybe FN4 will have him.

Hello.  I am also fucked.  We finished up Bioshock, more or less, then my wife had a serious concern for what our next game would be.  It had to have a story, and I said Shadowhearts 2, but she thinks that one is scary, at night anyway... to cut it short, we went to the Best Buy that opened in my town on Oct 5 and bought some stuff:

Eternal Sonata
Blue Dragon
Enchanted Arms ($19.95, how can I lose?)
Drawn to Life
Rune Factory
Fable with Bonus Shit

With that last one, my wife has joined the Buy A Game Twice Club.  She will be playing that one, or so she says.

Over the weekend I played Bioshock, SMT: Digital Devil Saga and Eternal Sonata.  Not much ES since my wife went to sleep.  As for SMTDDS, I beat Frost King last night, huzzah.  Bosses with no weaknesses suck.

I played some Super Mario World as well.  The boy loves SMW, or rather he loves watching me play it.

So easily.

None of those will get close to SH2's story.  Heh, I thought 1 was the scary one.  2 can just get kind of serious at times.  OK, some of the later stuff dealing with Alice can get a little spooky/creepy.

On the plate for me:
skate:  Real love/hate with this one.  Got to love a game with such a wicked learning curve that it doesn't need a difficulty setting.  I fear there will be a few film and at least one picture challenge (Manual Labour.. ugh)  I'll never be able to beat.
Persona 3: Only thing left to do is grind before the final boss(es) and finish off annoying Elizabeth requests.  Monad fucking stomps me at the moment.  I may set up some alternate saves and just see if I can finish at my current levels.
TF2: Yay pryo.

I've been playing TF2 and Soul Nomad, pretty much exclusively. On Wednesday, I expect to bust open Portal and finish it before the week is out (reports are that it's pretty short).

TF2, GH II, BF2, a bit of HL2. I have sequelitis! Will begin mixing liberal amounts of NHL 08 in starting today.

Is 'Manual Labor' the one where you flip into manual down the ledge and flip out?  If so, you don't need to do the 'whole' ledge - just the part that slopes downward that's slightly off to the left from your starting point.

And yea.  Lots of Skate, though my achievements earned really don't reflect the amount of time I've put into the game.

I may be getting the name wrong, but it's the photo shoot where you've got a high box that you have to land on in a manual, manual across the box, ollie to the next box, land in manual and manual across that one. Landing the jump onto the box is hard enough. Landing on the box skating across and tricking on to the next box would be hard enough.  Doing it without 4 wheels hitting the ground is fucking brutal.  I have a hard time landing a manual after a jump that's that high.   I really wish they would have given the option to do the sequence with a grind and gap.

Same, like Forza 2, my end achievements won't touch upon my time played.  Although with skate, it'll end up me just hitting a brick wall and spending all of my time looking for spots and just tricking up and down the city.

Oh Jesus, yea - I must have restarted that damned challenge 30-40 times.  That said, I prefer the specific challenges to the generic 'get 5000 points in 30s' photo ones, since the latter are trivial once you find a good-sized hill with a curb.

I suck at manuals and flips are random as well. Just like real life! It's all varials and shove-its for me. I managed to get past one bank-to-manual hopping challenge though, but it was a complete accident. I don't see myself getting very far in this game.. They might have cut down the ridiculous combo requirements that THPS was starting to demand on players, but I think it's still a more challenging game. And sooner or later, just like with THPS, I'm going to stop enjoying it.

I dunno - I find that once you get the hang of it, flips stop being random and can be pulled off 'on demand', though the control scheme requires a LOT of discipline on the sticks.  There's a few things I'd change about Skate, but the control scheme is most definitely not one of them and honestly, it's the best damn sports game to come out in ages imo.

So I did indeed get Fight Night 2.  Feelings are mixed thus far.  The "dynamic punch control" is just annoying, and it's full of the same stupid boxing game memes that have been around forever.  If I hit a guy with a huge uppercut, causing blood and spit to go flying into the back row, and then smash him with a huge hook as his already-limp and bloody body collapses to the canvas on his face, he should NOT bounce to his feet at the count of six.  I get no impression that a guy's chances of getting up are related to how hard I hit him, and every impression that the game is just making me knock him down at least three times to keep the fight from being "too short".

It's not that hard.  Measure how much damage was delivered in the final sequence, and how quickly, and use that to determine how hurt the fighter is.  If he was barely decked, have him go down on his hands and knees and look annoyed.  If he was totally fucking destroyed by half a dozen bombs delivered in as many seconds, THEN have him splatter all over the floor in a heap.

I'll post more after I play more.  It isn't bad, but it's not the game I wish someone would make.

You might enjoy it more with Middleweights and under maybe.

I have not been able to stop playing Jean D'Arc. It's not even that good and the heroes are French for fuck's sake, but it has some weird addictive hold on me. Halp....

Nothing wrong with the French!

Glad I bargain-binned this.  The aesthetic is that of something aimed at teenage gangsta wannabes, the design philosophy appears to revolve around needless complexity, and the roster of fighters is shockingly shallow in comparison to the old Knockout Kings titles.

Everytime my fighter does that dirt-shoveling motion over a guy, I want him to get hit by a car.  Is there an option somewhere to make a character who isn't a showboating douchebag?  Oh yeah, this is an EA SPORTS OMFG YO DAWG game, so no.  Could there be one musical track in the game that isn't some horrible shitty rap song?  Same answer.

I don't want to play a fucking cutman minigame.  Thankfully I can skip that, but it's just like this sort of game to give me sub-optimal results for letting the computer handle it.  I've refused to even go near any sort of training minigame, but the "pick one of only three training types and hope you don't get a random injury" system that replaces it is pure shit.  Just give me some stat points to allocate and STFU already.

Punching with the analog stick is a pointless pain in the ass.

And the roster?  The list of guys who hit their prime before 1990 consists of Ali, Frazier, Norton, Marciano, Liston, Robinson, LaMotta, Leonard, and Duran.  That's it.  I'm used to not seeing Tyson and Foreman in games, but where the hell are Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Larry Holmes, Marvin Hagler, Carlos Monzon, Tommy Hearns, or Archie Moore?  Where are all the fun second-string guys like Ingo Johanssen and Leon Spinks?

Featherweight and light heavyweight are complete losses, entirely devoid of historic fighters, instead padded with modern never-was slobs like Jeff Lacy and Derrick Gainer.  And where are good modern fighters like Lennox Lewis and Felix Trinidad?

The announcer won't stop saying stupid shit like "THAT HAYMAKER CARRIES A MESSAGE OF DESTRUCTION!" and having to do dumb shit like buy magic trunks that make me cut less, and hire sluts for the entourage to make my energy go up faster capped it off for me.

My brother recommended this game really highly, too.

Someone please make a boxing game for people who even know who Carlos Monzon is.

Hagler's in 3. You must be kidding about Leon Spinks.

Guys like Lennox Lewis probably aren't showing up because THEY do not want to or are asking too much. Kind of the same deal with other sports games and retired legends like Barkley and Jordan. Boxing is even worse cuz it's made up of individuals like that.

The analog fighting is the best part of it. I know the game as a whole isn't perfect, but try to enjoy it dude, it's not that bad!

I'm hardcore for boxing like Schild is for obscure Japanese video games.  The lack of Joe Louis alone is a catastrophe for this game, in my eyes.

I can't remember who all is included in FN3, but I loved it. I need to go back and play that some more, now that I think about it.

FN3 is great, mechanically, but it too suffers from the "You must knock your opponent down 3 times in a round to win no matter what (unless you knocked him down 1-2 times a round for the previous X rounds depending on stats)"  They are all Rockies and don't stay down, until "Is it safe?" torturous conditions are met.  You get clove oil between rounds.

There are some flash knockdowns, rare, but they spice things up.  Also, the replays between rounds (and after knockdowns) kind of suck.  You can see that they recorded coordinates of the joints/bones, and then replay them back using math, instead of an emulated recorded image.  So you get a lot of The Robot dancing.  Punches that lack the same force as when you threw them "live". 

Other than those flaws, it is one of the better boxing games made.

Play it with the HUD off.  It's so much cooler.

I can't deal with career mode in FN2.  The stat training is just too testicle-mashing.  I either have to grind one of three stupid minigames (and the additional loading screens) OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER or use "quick training" and be punished with grossy suboptimal stat gain.  Fuck that noise.

EDIT:  I don't really like flash knockdowns either.  Sure they happen in real life, but they happen for reasons you're never going to model in a video game.  In a game, they're just a matter of the random number generator shitting on someone.  All I want is a nice little damage-over-time mechanic for determining how badly hurt someone is when they go down.  That way the difference between a guy getting up three times, and a guy going splat on the first knockdown is how fast, hard, and accurate you are with your finishing punches.  FN2 doesn't seem to care if I floor a guy with a flurry of jabs so long as I grind his energy down to zero.

Well, FN3 makes you play Nutcracker between rounds as well.  Same thing as FN2 for the knockdowns.  It is blatantly, "We can't make this too easy!" mechanics.  Even though if you have the difficulty cranked, it is not too easy.  Against other players, you almost always get one easy recovery, after that, depending on the beating you took, it can be impossible to stand up as soon as the 2nd knockdown.

I agree on the career mode training games. Make that shit amateur career only.  After you're into your pro career, you should just pay the trainer money, and gain accordingly.  I got tired of that shit after I'd mastered each little mini-game.

I did finally work a guy up in career mode.  Won the title at heavyweight in his 20th fight, defended six times, and retired undefeated.  I think I went too fast though, everyone had better stats than me at the endgame level.  I may do it again, but spend more time in the lower ranks doing a "bum of the month tour" to run up my stats.

I just wish someone would make a UFC/PRIDE/MMA game that didn't suck donkey balls.
As for what I'm playing, slowly wading through HL2, though I'm up to one of the painful stretches.
Ran through Lost Coast earlier today.
Been playing through Portal a little bit since I realised it was finally open last night, inbetween naps.
Haven't touched the WoW in a week, though I should do my arenas tonigth at least, maybe quest a little with the wife.
Played some TF2 last night on the server, though it was empty of f13ers.. .

Yeah, fuck all really. Back at work does that to you.  :|

I've done nothing the last two nights but play Orange Box 360 (mostly TF2).  Yeah, 360.

When my first career mode heavyweight hit 20-0, he was 28 years old and had just won the title.  My new heavyweight just hit the same record, but he's only 23 and is ranked somewhere in the 30's.  Thanks to the "bum of the month" plan and my willingness to grind through that stupid "combo dummy" minigame, it's the new fighter who has the superior stats.  I took him into an exhibition match as a test and beat the fucking shit out of Sonny Liston.

Next time I get on, it's time to rape my way up the rankings.

Given how much I've played this game, I guess I like it now.  Turning off all the music and the announcer helped a lot.

Oh, and I set up an exhibition match that almost made me feel bad.  I chose Roy Jones (a fucking GOD in his prime, for the uninformed) and took on Jeff Lacy, a guy for whom getting into this game is probably a career highlight.  Well I'm just beating the fucking shit out of Lacy, but refusing to knock him out.  When it goes into the floaty-camera KO mode, I just sit back and taunt him.  Once he recovers, I resume pummeling the snot out of him.

Well this goes on for some rounds, and the guy is half dead.  He's hopelessly behind on the scorecards, he hasn't hurt me one bit, and his face looks like hamburger.  In real life, even the most callous trainer would throw in the towel rather than watch his fighter be humilitated and physically ruined in this way.  But everytime Lacy goes back to his corner, his trainer is saying shit like "Okay, so we lost that round, BOO HOO!  You have bigger things to worry about than your right eye!  Now start landing some shots!"

I kept thrashing him until the referee finally stopped the fight.  But I hope that somewhere in some esoteric video game plane of existence, pixelated Jeff Lacy is punching all his trainer's teeth out while screaming "BOO HOO, you have bigger things to worry about than ever eating solid food again!"

Hmm...so a friend gave me a 14-day trial to KOREAN WOW.

Damn.  8ms and 75fps.

I think I might have to learn Korean just to play on their awesome servers.  I have most of the early quests memorized in several areas.

I am (trying to) play Shadowbane. Again. Performance are slightly better (sb.exe still there though)

Unbelievably enough no one took the torch and SB is still the best PvP on paper. Too bad that it will take centuries for StrayBullets to craft any kind of 'sequel'.

Eternal Sonata [360]
Portal [PC]
Valkyrie Profile [PSP]

Right now:

Portal [PC]
Soul Nomad and the World Eaters [PS2]
Your Mom [Bedroom]
Still... Persona 3 [PS2]

Up next:

Everyday Shooter [PS3]
Folklore [PS3]

Still going strong with EQ2. A little time now and again with Orange Box stuffs. Need to finish Bioshock someday, I'm never in the mood for it.

o rly?

I see no error...(stealth edit)

39-0, 39 knockouts, heavyweight champ at age 28.  Won the title with a first round knockout.  Bottom-feeding to whore your stats is definitely the way to go.

So it's a very accurate boxing sim, then.

I can't stop playing Titan Quest + Expansion.  I'm on the last Act with my tank guy and am already planning builds for my Spirit/Dream caster of doom.

I've also been playing some SF3 which is odd considering today's announcement.

You were probably being facetious, but yes, that is a point in favor of it's authenticity.  Fighting weak opponents in rapid succession to build up experience is the usual way of bringing along a young fighter.  Mike Tyson's first ten opponents, for example, had a combined record of 54-51, but he beat them all in a total of less than 8 months.

You take that back!

Portal and Katamari to prepare myself for a marathon run to finish Persona 3.  So much gaming goodness upon arriving home. Yay.

Folklore, Katamri, and the entire damn Orange Box because I'm two years late to the party.

I like Blue Dragon more than Eternal Sonata.  Also more Mythos since the huge improvements.  Not much playing on all counts, but enough to let me post.

Ah, yes, almost forgot about Enchanted Arms.  This game is fucking hilarious.  It's hilarious because it's so bad, and it's also intentionally hilarious.  And incredibly gay.  I mean homosexual, not ghey or 1920s-happy.  Worth the $20 for me, but I would not recommend this to anyone.

I felt embarrassed and dirty after playing Enchanted Arms.  For some reason, I remember writing a review of it... but if I did, it doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Also, my thoughts on Blue Dragon:  oh god, the pixel hunting!  And the little yellow bastard.  Full of hate!

I completed Soul Nomad, finally. Meh. Not as good as other NIS titles I've played.

I actually got excited by that, but I'm broken.  I literally pressed Cecil's face against every wall in Final Fantasy IV.  Blue Dragon is like someone distilled nostalgia and ran a drip-bag of it into my arm.  I fucking hate Toriyama at this point, but the rest of it is like sweet, sweet candy to me.  My wife watched me investigate every single odd-looking thing and just commented "You like that kind of shit, don't you?"  I admit it.  I'm broken.  Ten gold in a power coupling?  Tee hee!

Fifa 08 for the PS2 (thanks EA for assfucking the Wii edition) and a little WoW now and then.

I am playing:

Halo 3
Gears of War (online)

and on constant rotation:

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
KOF XI
Guilty Gear Accent Core

Back in rotation:
Tekken 5/DR
Tekken Tag
Street Fighter EX 3

Azazel: I am waiting for a MMA game too. I got all the ones that came out and I actually really enjoyed Pride. If you like MMA you should try K1 on the ps2. It is a really good K1 representation, at least game play wise. If an MMA game had that games stand up and a decent ground game, I would cream.

Got my Xbox 360 Elite in anticipation of Mass Effect and now I kill zombies in the thousands with Dead Rising. I think there is a storyline buried somewhere in the game, but who really cares when you can take a lawnmower and go to town with it. I think I might restart later to see the storyline. Got all those survivors dying left and right and feeling a bit of guilt there.

Oh yes, and Guitar Hero 2, because now I can.

Man i really want to get Dead Rising but I hope that there is some Story there too. Is the Main game, the rescuing survivors and objectives stuff fun? Is it all funny all the time or is there a little bit of spook moments as well?

Rescuing survivors is ass.  They are idiots who get what they deserve.  I can't be bothered to feel bad about people who don't follow the orders of FRANK WEST, MACHO JOURNALIST.  There is indeed a main story but the respawning convicts irritate me so much that I am not sure I will complete it.  Then again, I do have the MegaBuster, so it's in the realm of possibility. :awesome_for_real:

The story is quite plain in the open. When I said buried I meant beneath the piles of Zombie corpses I create.

I can't comment on the quality yet, the parts I witnessed play out like typical Zombie movie stuff. Stupid people doing everything to get killed by Zombies. Some heroes trying to hold everything together but ultimately failing against the merciless time. And evil psychos trying to wreak havoc just because they can.

Uhh, it's pretty serious or as serious as you'd expect from any zombie flick.  Some of the rescue situations are inherently funny, but overall, it's general zombie genre stuff.

You've got people going crazy. You've got man being inhuman to man while the world is ending around them.  People being absurdly selfish while people are struggling just to survive.  Zombies doing zombie stuff.  Don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it'll have themes you've seen in any zombie flick as well as an "everyman" turning into a one man zombie killing army.

The main game is challenging and fun.  You have to make decisions unless you're just really good at it.  People may have to die and I think people that don't enjoy the game have the most problem with that.  It's just extremely hard, IMO, to be perfect at this game.  The psychopaths are a bit over the top and the fights with them are really the only glaring weakness the game has outside of the save system.

However, the most fun is just killing zombies in all of the interesting ways you can do it. The story is time limited and thus may impede on your zombie genocidal tendencies.

And in other news...

I think I may be stuck in skate.  I really don't think I'll be able to complete the last remaining photo or finish any of the 9 (ugh) remaining videos unless I spend 1-2 hour sessions trying each one, which is decidedly less fun than just tricking around the own.  I may never get to the x-games or other park.  This kind of pisses me off.  They look to be rather fun.  :sad_panda: