The useless what-I-am-playing thread

[schild]

I thought it was generally accepted that Fallout 2 has the best intro of any game ever.

Deus Ex.

[Driakos]

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.

[Nonentity]

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.

[Phildo]

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.

[lamaros]

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.

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.

[Strazos]

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.

[Xilren's Twin]

Bioshock PC
Two Worlds PC
Dungeons and Dragons Tactics (PSP)

and Im getting ready to resub to City of Heroes/Villians for my kids.

[Falwell]

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.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Moaner]

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...

[HaemishM]

Playing Madden NFL 08 and Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii. The Mario Strikers is way too much fun on the first go-round.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Phildo]

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.

[Yegolev]

Fucking Peggle.

[squirrel]

Finished Bioshock, using my small free game time to finish GHII and build a Dwarf Fortress/

[Azazel]

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...

[MrHat]

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.

[squirrel]

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...

[WindupAtheist]

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.

[stray]

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.

[WindupAtheist]

I'll have to bargain-bin FN2.  Fighter selection is paramount to me, and any game with Chris Byrd in it is love.

[stray]

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.

[Yegolev]

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.

[schild]

Enchanted Arms ($19.95, how can I lose?)

So easily.

[Rasix]

It had to have a story, and I said Shadowhearts 2, but she thinks that one is scary, at night anyway...

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.

[Yoru]

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).

[WayAbvPar]

TF2, GH II, BF2, a bit of HL2. I have sequelitis! Will begin mixing liberal amounts of NHL 08 in starting today.

[MisterNoisy]

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.

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.

[Rasix]

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.

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.

[MisterNoisy]

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.

[stray]

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.

[MisterNoisy]

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.

[WindupAtheist]

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.

[stray]

You might enjoy it more with Middleweights and under maybe.

[squirrel]

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....