What games are you currently playing?

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

About halfway through Majora's Mask. I'm really impressed with this game, it's been a very long time since I cared so much about helping NPCs. I'm also enjoying the Wii U's ability to upscale to 1080p.

[Taskmage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Picked up Little Inferno and Thomas Was Alone in the Humble Indie Bundle yesterday. I cannot believe I spent three hours staring into a fireplace setting things ablaze. Both in terms of story and gameplay, both games managed to do a lot with very little, but both disappointed me with their endings. In Thomas's case, they could have just given me some flowery and ambiguous description of what the AIs saw or did at the end. Like, all of the framing elements of the story tell you that everything's leading up to a particular event, and in the last level that thing just happens, quietly and without fanfare. Anticlimactic. I'm hoping I'll get a slightly extended ending if I go back and collect the two pickups that I missed, but I doubt it.

Little Inferno's story did kindof the same thing Braid's did. Lots of things are never explained, and many things are obviously intended to be symbolic, but rather than even hint at what you should take away from it, the developers just leave it to the player to project their own ideas onto the framework. To me, it just reads like a Mad Libs made entirely of blanks and parts of speech. A story that could mean anything might as well not mean anything. If you want to leave some things ambiguous to leave room for interpretation, good on you, but at least make some of your meaning clear and discrete.

Dear Esther was in the package, too. Been meaning to play that for a while but haven't gotten to it yet.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

wooo! Beat Metro: Last Light and got True Spartan, Redemption & Shadow Ranger all in one shot.

Shadow Ranger was a complete pain in the ass too, omg... between The Chase and Red Square, I was raging for a bit. Wondering now if there will be a 3rd game or not, as they sorta hint at it in the Redemption ending but it's not concrete;

They more or less tied up all the loose ends and added a little something to the effect of "well, there could be a 3rd game but no guarantees as it all ended rather conclusively."

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I finally picked up Tomb Raider after a few months of dodging spoilers. I grew up playing the Tomb Raider games so I'm pretty excited and usually end up buying the games from the series even if they end up being terrible video games that that likely didn't even QA (Last Revelation, Chronicles and Angel of Darkness).

So far my first impression has been "Why did they make the R1 button the fire button?" alongside "FUCK YOU MUSCLE MEMORY!"

[cidbahamut]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Lots and lots of Skyrim. The only reason I realized I was still playing at three in the morning was because I alt-tabbed to check Facebook and saw Yyg posting about heading to work.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

The 13th Touhou Project: Touhou Shinreibou--Ten Desires.

Was /\ THIS close to getting a 1cc (1 credit clear, i.e. no continues) on Hard Mode with Marisa last night. Just had to capture the final boss's last spell, which isn't even that hard, but I messed up in the final phase of it.

Once I do that, I plan on downloading TH13.5 Hopeless Masquerade--the latest of the Touhou fighting games--and getting my butt systematically handed to me via netplay.

[DakAttack]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

600 meter head-shot with the L96. Finally completed that assignment.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

^ I HATED that one. Traded in BF3 not that long ago actually, just got tired of it.

I'll admit I miss it, but meh - I'll see how BF4 goes. I've been enjoying Metro LL quite a bit and am nearing the end of my Ranger Hardcore playthrough for the last 2 achievements (dear God I hate QTE's with no HUD)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

About halfway through Majora's Mask. I'm really impressed with this game, it's been a very long time since I cared so much about helping NPCs. I'm also enjoying the Wii U's ability to upscale to 1080p.

It really is one of the few games where you genuinely want to help people, much of it due to each character's events leading you to stumble upon other events and characters that need help. It almost feels like the game was directly inspired by Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day.

If you like how connected Majora's Mask world feels, you'd probably really enjoy Persona 3 or 4 as follow-ups. The both have an excellent way of making every NPC feel important, even if the way you help them isn't as quest based. There are quests, but often the relationship building is just separate from it, but there's so many people to meet and events to experience that you really do feel like those games are places you've lived in.

I guess Shenmue was kind of like that, too, but that sadly came with a decade-long cliffhanger.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

52/52 1110 Gamescore from Metro: Last Light.

DAVAI!!! :D

[Armando]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

It really is one of the few games where you genuinely want to help people, much of it due to each character's events leading you to stumble upon other events and characters that need help.

What really shocked me is that it even got me to sympathize with this guy:


Just when I think I'm going to hate someone, or that the NPC is going to be flat and uninteresting, the game proves me wrong.

P3 and P4 were already on my to-do list even before your post, but I'm gonna bump up their priority if it shares that in common with Majora's Mask.

[Aksannyi]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I never did finish Majora's Mask. I should really consider doing that one of these days. If I can ever really tear myself away from the mountain of homework I have to do. I haven't played shit in weeks.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

P3 and P4 were already on my to-do list even before your post, but I'm gonna bump up their priority if it shares that in common with Majora's Mask.

If i were to add another parallel, its just that like MM, P3 and P4 have that schedule-based structure, just more in at 24/7 Japanese school year sense rather than a time loop. Classes, clubs, finals, stuff outside of class, part time jobs, shopping and then your dungeon crawling.

I'd personally recommend the portable versions over the PS2 ones, but if Vita isn't an option for you, the PS2 versions are fine. There's just some really dated mechanics in the P3 games on PS2 that may require you to consult Gamefaqs since they don't let you highlight skills in those games to see what they do. P3P and P4 fix that, but P4G goes one better and lets you pick which skill you can inherit (minus endgame-tier family-specific skills) while older Persona games just randomize the skills (which makes min/maxers like me cancel and retry a lot to see if I can get something better).

The PS2 versions of P3 also don't let you choose the actions of your allies, where in P3 Portable you can shut that shit off and choose for them. P3P also has a gender option, which leads to gender-specific events and social relationships for the added female protagonists, which is a nice touch. P3P does lack the added content and anime cutscenes of P3 FES, but there honestly weren't that many anime cutscenes there anyway.

Doesn't really matter which order you tackle them in, but Persona 4 does tend to spoil people with its improved design. P3's also a bit more dark and brooding while P4 is the happiest murder mystery you'll ever experience.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?



Today's headline.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

If i were to add another parallel, its just that like MM, P3 and P4 have that schedule-based structure, just more in at 24/7 Japanese school year sense rather than a time loop. Classes, clubs, finals, stuff outside of class, part time jobs, shopping and then your dungeon crawling.

I'd personally recommend the portable versions over the PS2 ones, but if Vita isn't an option for you, the PS2 versions are fine. There's just some really dated mechanics in the P3 games on PS2 that may require you to consult Gamefaqs since they don't let you highlight skills in those games to see what they do. P3P and P4 fix that, but P4G goes one better and lets you pick which skill you can inherit (minus endgame-tier family-specific skills) while older Persona games just randomize the skills (which makes min/maxers like me cancel and retry a lot to see if I can get something better).

The PS2 versions of P3 also don't let you choose the actions of your allies, where in P3 Portable you can shut that shit off and choose for them. P3P also has a gender option, which leads to gender-specific events and social relationships for the added female protagonists, which is a nice touch. P3P does lack the added content and anime cutscenes of P3 FES, but there honestly weren't that many anime cutscenes there anyway.

Doesn't really matter which order you tackle them in, but Persona 4 does tend to spoil people with its improved design. P3's also a bit more dark and brooding while P4 is the happiest murder mystery you'll ever experience.

Both games handle some pretty mature subject matter very well. It is also worth noting that the Portable versions of the games are a lot more generous with how and when you can save the game. P4 is great since it lets you save during phases of extremely long events which is great for a portable game (and the main reason why I will NOT be buying any of the portable MGS games).

As for P3P vs P3 FES. FES has a 10-15 hour Epilogue that seems a lot longer due to the amount of grinding it forces you to do. It also has animé cutscenes and faster loading times and the character is controllable everywhere due to it not using a UMD.

P3P has a female option which basically opens up an entirely new story. So much of the dialogue is different it might as well be a new game. If you ever played RE1 or RE2 you will probably understand what I mean. It has the better gameplay mechanics including control over what the party and your personae learn, plus since it's portable, saving while in Tartarus is much easier. Oh and you can control party members in battle in P3P while turns Akihiko, Mitsuru and Shinji into downright gamebreakers since their AI isn't holding them back. The downsides are that it lacks animé cutsscenes, they are rendered in the game engine now which can least to some scenes going from scary, dramatic or serious to pretty hilarious because of how awful it looks. The game also only lets you control your character while in Tartarus, everything else is done in Visual Novel style.

As the P4 and P4G, get P4G is possible. it has everything that P4 has but has more social links, more dungeons, more personae, more scenes, bonus scenes and a playable epilogue as well as a ton of extra features (like a gallery mode, quiz game, theatre mode and jukebox mode) and easter eggs. It also lets you have far more control over the party's builds and the party learns more skills. Chie is also rebalanced too so she is useful for the entire game now instead of (just early game and late game) though her AI is still a bit broken. Naoto is rebalanced to be more useful for Boss Fights too. Oh and Rise is actually useful in battle now, she can use her Persona to support the party instead of just giving battle commentary and scanning stuff for you.