What games are you currently playing?

[Icemage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

You too eh? Apparently it's only happening to people who imported from ME1 to ME2. Pissed me off, but I think I managed to copy my Shepard's face down correctly. He looks badass than ever, but now I'll always have that lingering feeling that something is off.

That doesn't make sense, because there are PS3 players who have reported the invalid facial feature import, and ME1 wasn't on PS3.

That said, my PS3 import went off without any hitches at all, other than being slightly annoyed that Bioware auto-assigned my first four ranks in three skills already.

Oh well... Enjoying the game so far, though I haven't had much time to play. Went straight for Insanity difficultly since the import transferred everything, spent skill points and all - lots of fun.

Same, Insanity or bust! Is it just me or does Insanity feel harder in ME3 than in ME2?

That Chakram Launcher from the KoA demo is a beast. Gave it to Kaidan, and those Cerberus bastards were staggering left and right.

It's definitely strong as a weapon for your allies. The weight is prohibitive when you use it yourself, though.

Spent all my time yesterday playing ME3's multiplayer mode. Pushed my Galaxy at War stats to 100% readiness, hit level 18 Sentinel and earned a few trophies along the way.

I'm shocked to hear myself say it, but ME3's multiplayer mode is actually really good and fun. Not without a few glitches here and there, but it's solid and entertaining.


Icemage

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Taking hacking out of games where hacking is a part of the story is like taking projectile weapons out of a shooter.

When the missions are about getting into places you're not supposed to be or stealing things, you need the hacking to sell those points. Apparently my Commander Shepard, who hacked everything in sight for two games now is too dumb to do it and gets someone else to do it for her. What the hell? Yeah, there are characters they can use for that, but it just takes something out of the risk/reward equation.

With Deus Ex, hacking had a consequence, but it was also a big part of choosing how to go about your missions. Hacking was just one of many ways of getting around an obstacle or to an objective.

Actually it's the minigames we are complaining about, not hacking. I know other people like them but It gets to the point where I'd rather just have the game roll the dice to see if my character succeeded or failed like a pen and paper game with the appropriate consequence happening.

[Raydeus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I installed my free copy of Dirt3 (got the codes when I updated my graphics cards) and I have to say I'm surprised about how welcoming it is (I'm a dual-shock GT player after all), so I may spend more time playing the game than anticipated. <_<

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Actually it's the minigames we are complaining about, not hacking. I know other people like them but It gets to the point where I'd rather just have the game roll the dice to see if my character succeeded or failed like a pen and paper game with the appropriate consequence happening.

So you would prefer a stupid grind element to a simple memory game?

Even if it wasn't as in-depth as DX's hacking (which also had a real consequence for failure), I preferred it because it was something else to do besides just shoot things.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

How does pen and paper style action resolution equal grinding?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I don't see what it adds to the experience, aside from a arbitrary pass/fail element instead of a skill-based one. You're asking to mash a button until the dice hits high enough, basically.

You're asking for something more annoying and certainly more immersion-breaking than the thing you seem to have a problem with. The ME1 stuff wasn't all that interesting because it was just QTEs, but there was nothing wrong with a simple matching game being a hack. Its a break form the monotony of the duck and cover game.

But I guess variety is bad, right?

[Raydeus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I installed my free copy of Dirt3 (got the codes when I updated my graphics cards) and I have to say I'm surprised about how welcoming it is (I'm a dual-shock GT player after all), so I may spend more time playing the game than anticipated. <_<

Ok, maybe not. What's with that LIVE crap of not being able to save your progress (on the single player campaign) if you aren't logged on? And since I don't want Marketplace either now I can't even start the game. Meh, at least it was free.

It's a shame they put such retarded restrictions in place on a game that could've been enjoyable otherwise.

/imminentuninstall

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Not everyone likes being forced to stop all action because a compulsory minigame popped up to break all sense of immersion and are pretty much guaranteed to always succeed no matter how horrible your character is at the given task (Bethesda have become ridiculous about this recently). It just takes away from a Class and Level system more than level scaling does if every skill based challenge your character could potentially fail at is replaced with a minigame easily beaten by the player. Mass Effect hacking is one of them. Lockpicking and Hacking on Fallout is another one.

It's not as if there's even any risk involved in modern RPGs by suddenly dropping everything and hacking something. At least in DA, disarming a trap mid-combat was usually near suicidal as the thing would often blow up in your face. In other RPGs that replace skill based challenged with minigames the entire world politely stops while you take all the time and tries you need to do the minigame (A couple of games do have timed ones but it's usually generous enough to not make much difference).

I'm not attacking minigames in general. FFVII and the Pokemon series in general are great examples of minigames in RPGs done right. Very fun minigames accessible when you want a bit of a change I'm fine with. What bores me is stuff like the hacking in ME, Bioshock and Fallout or lockpicking in Oblivion, Fallout and Skyrim that are thrust upon you even if you're supposed to be some master hacker but are also easily completable by a character who thinks a mouse is small rodent that likes cheese.

A minigame saying that an expert and a completely unskilled character have the same likelihood of succeeding or failing at an action as long as you're good at the minigame is just as arbitrary and immersion breaking as having a dice roll determine a pass/fail at the skill challenge really.

[Raydeus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Hacking and lock picking could use quite a few different types of systems/locks to spice things up, that is completely true. And it would help with immersion because having the same lock/system on everything is just silly.

But doing away with it on games like TES or Fallout is just a huge no. You want that awesome gear and/or trap that will probably kill you when open? Pick up a few lockpicks son. 'Cause this is how we do things here in the Wasteland.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

It's not as if there's even any risk involved in modern RPGs by suddenly dropping everything and hacking something.

Um, no.

If I hack in Deus Ex; Human Revolution - which is optional 90% of the time - and I fail the hack, alarms go off and enemies move to my position. That's risk. There are tracer programs to find out I'm hacking during the hack. That's risk. The few things I absolutely must hack are mission-critical. There are many ways to complete a mission in DXHR and few of them are mandatory but hacking can help you find a lot more weapons, money and shortcuts - not to mention it helps a great deal in you remaining undetected.

Hacking is also optional 90% of the time in ME and ME2 and in ME, there's never a mission critical one but the mission-critical ones in ME2 have infinite retries. If I fail a wall safe hack in ME or ME2, I just don't get access and no extra chances, for computers I have three chances to succeed with an encryption hack.

And again with Skyrim and Fallout 90, probably 95% of the lockpicking is again optional. Any door you absolutely must get through has a key for it. I don't even perk out my lockpicking tree, its not worth it, but I don't have a problem doing the lockpicking. Oh, and if you lockpick in plain sight of others, people are kind of going to have a problem with it - city guards especially. You'll go to jail or die for getting caught doing it. There's your risk.

So your claim about most modern games avoiding risk or consequence on this is ringing pretty hollow. Additionally, you're complaining about something that is almost entirely optional breaking your immersion. All these little things strewn about a world that I don't have to do go a long way in helping me buy into a world's fantasy, so suddenly dropping elements like this without explaining why they are gone by way of story is incredibly poor game design as well.

Interestingly, they also dropped extensive planet scanning for a long-range sensor scan mechanic. If something picks up, the planet is highlighted, you initiate a planetary scan and the spot to drop the probe is highlighted. The only reason I forgive this painfully simple approach is that if you drop too many long range sensor scans, the Reapers pick up on that and eventually invade that solar system and you have to leave it. Risk and reward that fits the story.

I'm just asking for a bit of consistency here.

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I just bought the id Super Pack on Steam. Now I know why DOOM caused me so much distress as a child: the default control scheme is absolutely terrible, which made me feel helpless and vulnerable, mainly because I was. The game uses the arrow keys instead of WASD, but to make it worse Left and Right make you turn, not strafe. There's a separate key you need to hold to strafe (Alt) and another key to run faster (Shift). You shoot with Ctrl. The mouse is totally screwed up too because moving it vertically actually moves you forward/backward (I understand that the DOOM engine is 2D so it doesn't allow looking up/down, but that's still absurd) and right click moves you forward as well instead of doing something useful like opening doors (you have to double right click for that.)

I realize that these guys popularized ray-casting and essentially invented FPS and client-server multiplayer, but wow. I'm totally remapping this nonsense.

[Trei Shouri]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Street Fighter x Tekken is eating up a lot of my non-FFXI free time at the moment. Definitely my new favorite fighting game.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

DICE finally announced the new DLC packs for BF3 - 3 of them, and they are sounding freaking epic. Can not wait, the first one comes out June 12th.

In the meantime still cycling between BF3 and SC2, but now FFXIV as well. Looking forward to Silent Hill next week so I can cover it for the show (I think Ygg is getting Tales).

EDIT: Just saw this, as people are talking about having to redo shephard's look... rofl

[Trei Shouri]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Ooh. BF3 DLC does sound good. I'll have to check that stuff out. And Silent Hill bundle is next week? Crap... I was trying so hard to save money.

[Neverslip]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Have been hankering to play Dark Souls again... so I popped it in and have just been re-exploring in NG+. Such an amazing game. I love to play it. It's pretty and all but just the controls really make me happy. It truly is one of the most perfect games I've played this generation, imo.

Also, been playing Tiny Towers on Android. I've had a couple set backs (updates have away about 20 floors and 30 bitizens 2 seperate times now) ... I now have a 73 floor tower and the bestest elevator. It's a pretty good on-the-toilet game, imo.

DL'd a Infinity Blade rip-off for Android called Blood And Glory ... well... it's okay gameplay-wise. Not as responsive as I'd like. Graphics are pretty decent. BUT the thing that basically makes this game a PoS for me is that in order to get anywhere you have to buy your way through the game. I'd rather have just paid $5-10 for the whole game rather than be subjected to a constant barrage of micro-transactions. Every time you win you get the option to double your rewards for $.99. Health potions cannot be purchased with the ingame currency... you have to subscribe to GLU ($4.99/mo or $9.99/mo) so you get their GLUcoins in order for you to purchase fucking health potions. And in order to progress past many of the other gladiators you HAVE to have health potions. So, I'm most likely going to uninstall very soon.