What games are you currently playing?

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I think you need to play this demo to see how terrible it is. As I said its so awful boycotting it is an empty threat. Simply releasing this game would do more damage to Capcom than supporting SOPA would.

I just wanted to see Capcom on their knees and humbled, not watch them put a gun to thier head and pull the trigger.

This is exactly how I feel about a number of companies, Capcom included. Activision is still at the top of the list, but yeah that sums it up fairly well - I happen to rather like and enjoy COD, I just loathe what it's doing to the industry and the genre. They keep releasing arguably worse/lazier titles every year (MW3 is a blatant copy & paste job and now we have Black Ops TWO coming from Treyarc...) refusing to fix the problems that continue to plague the series, and yet despite all that each year the games sell more than the previous one did!!! It doesn't exactly send a very positive message, and it really crowds out the other developers.

While I love BF3 to death, I have to agree at least in part with Marcus from Invisible Walls - EA fucking blew it. They had the best chance in years to really stick it to Activision with BF3 and they fucked it up with that public Beta (that really should have been either internal or at least not used a several-month old build) and the God awful campaign which was for whatever reason the main focus of their hype. The 12 minute long preview of the 1st mission was actually amazing, and that level in it's entirety was pretty good. But then the game just kinda falls apart gradually, turning into a black-ops clone. I was extremely disappointed that BF3 didn't do better than it did.

Plus their whole online pass nonsense didn't help things either. At least with COD you can take it with you to a friend's place or invite your friends over and there's no problems if you all have Gold. Not with BF3, no sir. I understand why they do it, but I honestly feel it's only hurting them in the long run.

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

After about 2 years of college-related interruptions, I finished Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Quite possibly the hardest game I've ever played whose main purpose isn't just to be hard for the sake of hard, and definitely the hardest final boss I've ever seen. I ended up with 79.5 hours on my save file, which I'm sure is more like 160 when you take failures and resets into account. Might have something to do with the fact that US "Normal" difficulty is actually the JP "Hard." (US "Hard" is actually the JP borderline-fucking-impossible difficulty.)

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Just finished the 13-2 demo....

God damn it SE, now I'm sorely tempted to pre-order it. They weren't kidding at all a few months back on Invisible Walls when they said SE had fixed a lot of the complaints with XIII. The random encounters can get a little annoying when you're trying to talk to an NPC, but much like X-2, XIII-2 has a fantastic battle system and really feels a lot more like a proper RPG this time around. NPCs you can interact with are a big plus, as are instant paradigm shifts and the monster buddies aren't as tacky as I thought they'd be.

Though it makes me rather sad that you're seemingly restricted to just Noel and Sarah for your main party, with the monsters acting as your effective 3rd for the rest of the game (barring segments where you get to play as Lightning or Snow as we've seen in some of the trailers). The time travel mechanic is surprisingly well done also, and harkens back to Chrono Trigger almost. They've even added segments where you're given one-time on the spot dialogue options which I imagine (among other split decisions, such as taking Atlas head-on or going for the control device first instead) so that explains at least partially the 2 different endings being possible.

And it's not like you just go between 2 different time periods - the video at the end shows you are all over the freaking time line visiting various areas at multiple points in time which is fantastic (again, heavy CT influence here). Really my only concern at this point is if I want to shelf out the cash for it when I kinda have to watch my money for now and I've already got Diablo 3 pre-ordered. I could rent it for 2 weeks but that's like $14 + tax I believe and well, seeing as I ended up enjoying XIII in the end (yes I know that shocks some people) I'm leaning on just buying this one outright.

Who has the extra monster pre-order, btw? Was it Amazon? And HOLY CRAP Omega Weapon looks sweet, he's back in classic form! :D

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Yeah, I'm kinda torn on that myself. The XIII-2 demo showed all the reasons why I play a Final Fantasy game. Its not always the story or characters or gameplay that I need to be sold on, its robust gameplay options that seal the deal for me on an RPG and XIII-2 has them in ways XIII just doesn't seem to.

As for Fire Emblem, Armando will be happy to know its going to be the first franchise Nintendo dabbles with the idea of DLC expansions. The next game hits Japan in March and there are plans for expansions after release. Thankfully, they've said they plan to make these actual, substantial storyarchs with plenty of maps to battle on and characters to acquire, so we can at least be thankful it doesn't appear to be the nickel-and-dime bullshit the industry is so keen on these days.

Considering what Intelligent Sytems just did with Pushmo - which as over 200 levels, a level creator and was like six bucks - I don't have any worries with them doing DLC.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I'm actually driven mostly by story when it comes to RPGs, but the gameplay IS a deal breaker with some. But supposedly the plot is also much better this time around as well. Really the only thing that bothered me was how STUPID that moogle looks - it's face is just weird, like someone smashed it in with a hammer... also Noel looks like some weird cross between Squall & Sora but I'll let that one slide for the time being. Like you said in your earlier post, the QTE are actually good for a change and don't feel tacky.

I guess the one thing I honestly don't like would have to be the changes to the Crystarium. I don't see why they felt the need to mess with it, as I honestly felt that was one of the few parts the original game got (mostly) right. My main concern is that you can level whatever classes are open to you freely, but each time you do you the cost goes up in general - that is, if you spend 220 CP to raise COM 1 level, then it's going to be 230 for the next level regardless of what class you raise. This is fine in the early game, but has potential for major consequences down the road if you don't keep your classes evened out. but then that too has a big drawback, as you may be missing critical late-game abilities.

Still, at least in the demo, it was far more forgiving than "splashing" other classes... the EXP you needed to raise the final classes for each character (that is, everyone got 3 or 4 natively I believe and the other 2 last) was astronomical, going over 60k CP for stupid shit like +40 HP. And above all else, sweet mother of God THANK YOU FOR GIVING US GIL AGAIN!!! I know I'm not the only one who was beyond sick of having to actually NPC items for gil. After the retarded grindfest of XIII's turtles (I still haven't felled a single adamantoise and I don't know if I ever will... fucking Dark matter!!!!) it's such a massive relief to see that we once again get gil from regular battles. Leave the NPC'ing nonsense to XI and XIV since they're MMO's with actual economies SE, it's just another hassle that detracts from the regular entries.

Oh and to clarify on Omega, you don't get him right away - he's a superboss that you have to beat to get him on your team, so no starting the game off with him. However since we don't know the details of the new game plus mode, there could still be a chance to keep him on your next playthrough. Even still, that honestly seems even cheaper than retaining all your stuff I mean honestly. Having a super boss as your pet?

I was somewhat tolerant of all the pre-order nonsense before, but this time it really is going too damned far. There is no contest between Omega or a stupid costume & weapon. Nevermind that Japan is getting all this as DLC instead, all of which is free for the first week or so of their release!!!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Crystarium is pretty terrible in FFXIII. Its too restrictive too early. All those sections with Sazh and Vanille were made too tedious by the lack of a sentinel or secondary medic role to ease things up a bit.

As for the DLC thing, here's why DLC is the way it is:

Publishers are douchebags, not giving retailers a proper cut of retail sales and seeking to diminish the used market retailers rely on to keep the doors open.
Retailers decide to be douchebags right back and tell publishers they won't blindly buy so many of their games in bulk without exclusives anymore.

Add to this that retailers hate the digital market in the first place and many gamers do, too. The number of woefully incomplete games coming to market has become almost intolerable.

I do tend to scoff at the people that bitch about a game like Skyrim being "incomplete." I think an open world game with 400+ hours of scripted content just has proper expansions and there is no withheld content. Its games like Mass Effect, Arkham City and Saint's Row the Third where there's so much DLC in the first month of realease it reeks of a cash grab or questioning consumer loyalty that I have a problem with.

Batman Arkham City was a tremendous disappointment for me because of that. This was a game that should have just stayed in development for another year until they could have found a way to integrate all these other playable characters into the main story. And the story was subpar compared to Asylum and the requite comic book tie-in to even make the story make sense was a shameful move. I love Batman and his comics to pieces, but the comic tie-in wasn't needed. You'd think with this game being Mark Hamill's final performance as Joker this game would have been treated with a bit more respect. Asylum had some of this, too, but none of it impeded the core game.

Saint's Row III, oh god, that was just pathetic. They took out a lot of the things people liked about SR2 and tried to sell it as DLC in SR3. Disgusting. And that's saying a lot considering this is game with a dildo bat in it.

Mass Effect may as well be the most half-baked trilogy ever. I don't think ME3 has a hope of being the send off Bioware hopes it will be. Plus they're working for EA now, so they'll still have to milk it. Just imagine trying to play this game a generation or two down the road. Its not going to hold up simply because of all the weird shit EA insisted be forced on the game and the rushed deadlines alone. It will never hold up to the likes of KOTOR, NWN or Baulder's Gate and TOR is pretty much doomed to have a lack of interest by the MMO community at large for its obsessive story focus and utter lacking open world and PVP options.

They should have just made another proper KOTOR game.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

yeah Catwoman being DLC/pre-order only was rather annoying. I thought the game was still pretty well done as it was, but you're right - they definitely should have held it off for a while longer to give everyone the complete batman experience.

But you know, maybe if retailers got a proper share and online games were properly discounted, we'd all get along? Sadly I don't see that happening, ever. Capcom is still the worst offender in my eyes though, with MvC3U. Who the fuck greenlighted that nonsense? And when I check places like GT, it's nothing but mindless slobbering over how "awesome" it is. Yeah it's real fucking awesome the way Capcom deliberately screwed people over. Damned sheep.

[Raydeus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

They should have just made another proper KOTOR game.

Agreed. Heck even a KOTOR HD release would've been better gaming and better business for them.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!!

Finally got that damned Lost Vikings Gold on SC2's campaign - ended my run with 816,200 points. All Campaign Achievements DONE!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

You know, its cool that Blizzard wants to keep referencing The Lost Vikings, but here's a crazy idea - make a Lost Vikings game or do a remake of the original rather than just keep milking it for inside jokes. The fact that Trine and Trine 2 do well kinda proves there's a market for it.

[Feba]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

At some point, they finally did it.


They released Katawa Shoujo.


And to think, I was expecting my girlfriend being busy all weekend to suck.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

You know, that game could come off as progressive and heartwarming it it had one or maybe two people with a disability or disfigurement, but making it the exclusive focus of the dating sim and including measurements for each disabled girl... that's just beyond creepy. People who deal with this stuff just want to be treated like everyone else.

Then again, "creepy" is usually what "visual novels" are.

[Feba]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Honestly, that was the entire point though.

I remember the demo version actually handled it all with a surprising amount of class. I'm looking forward to seeing how the full version goes.

[Raydeus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

The only slightly controversial thing about KS is the naming. It's kinda odd.

But other than that characters with disabilities (be it physical or emotional) fare way better in Japanese media than they do in others from what I've seen.

[DakAttack]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Japan finds physical flaw and defects endearing. That's why they don't go to dentists.