next »

[s0]

actually the reason morrowind is my fave bethesda game is because the world is smaller and better designed than usual.

[MeshGearFox]

Rubber Tree? That'll give 'er girl wood alright!

[s0]

BARONY: i think i prefer this over delver actually. it's a really nice attempt at making an actual "real time roguelike" that incorporates all the classic mechanics like item identification, spell memorization and etc but still plays very smoothly. nice level generation too, doesn't go for a standard rooms + corridors setup but has a dungeon crawl stone soup sort of feel. it also has co-op but i havent tried that yet (mainly because i have no one to play with lol).

[Tanner]

How much does it feel like Underworld?

[s0]

it does KINDA feel like underworld but it unfortunately lacks real verticality.

[bitserum]

Beaten Gunpoint, man that game's too short and it didn't wear out its welcome at all.

Now going through Waking Mars, I like the planting mechanics and learning about the bio system, though it's a bit repetitive. Story delivery seems quite good.

[SirNiko]

A new 3rd party Portal 2 mini-campaign was released called "Portal Stories: Mel". It's a mixed bag.

The puzzle designs are pretty excellent, and high difficultly. It took me a few hours to work them all out the first time. You'll feel good when you solve them, since the solutions almost always seem obvious in retrospect. A lot of effort is put into the voice acting, and the maps have a lot of detail, especially in the "broken" maps where you can see unreachable parts of the facility through the walls. There are a number of hidden rooms to find, and a couple of optional pieces of dialogue that make doing your own thing worthwhile.

The jokes tend to fall flat - they feel like reused jokes from Portal 2, but with poor delivery. The voice acting is good - the characters are just not funny.

The reused settings feel samey. It's particularly painful towards the end of the game where you encounter a turret manufacturing facility and need to reprogram it, and the puzzles feel just like the same sequence in portal 2. The use of turrets in the final battle, at least, feels new. It would have been great if the developer could have combined some assets to create a new setting, like a set of outdoor puzzle rooms. There's at least one puzzle set in an indoor junkyard, it's a shame that kind of layout wasn't used for more puzzles.

Definitely worth a playthrough if you're looking for a new set of Portal puzzles, but don't expect to be impressed by the dialogue or non-puzzle segments.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Playing some more Sleeping Dogs (by far the best GTA-ish I've ever played) and got some of the DLC, really liked it, now I am acquiring and piling on more DLC. I like that rather than "here's another costume" each of the DLC costumes actually do different things in-game (for example, giving you a new fighting style and altering your attributes) and a lot of them come bundled with new missions and such. There are a few lame duck DLCs (unlocking late-game items early, extra money, etc.) but for the most part the plethora of DLC I've seen is a change from what game usually try to shovel in your face.

I've yet to check out the Yakuza games, been meaning to give that series a try. Anyone play them and would recommend them?

Yakuza 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. Possibly my favorite open world games. I love how they take the approach of having a much smaller area but with WAY more stuff to do. You cant walk 10 feet without seeing something interesting.

imo the problem with getting into the yakuza games is that the story is continuous and if u don't either play them in order or watch a long cutscene movie u wont know wats goin on half the time.

and that's what makes it beautiful

i got bored with the cutscene movie included in yakuza 3. the story is good as part of a game but it's not really something i would watch as a movie.

Don't start with Yakuza 3. I tried that, was a little bored and then didn't play the entire serries again for 5 yeats. Yakuza 4 is a way better starting point. I suspect 3 will be more enjoyable after playing 4 because the way they present the past events in 4 they don't really give anything away in the earlier games but it does make you want to play it to see what happened.

[cynicalsandel]

persona 4 golden <3

[DJFloppyFish]

Don't start with Yakuza 3. I tried that, was a little bored and then didn't play the entire serries again for 5 yeats. Yakuza 4 is a way better starting point. I suspect 3 will be more enjoyable after playing 4 because the way they present the past events in 4 they don't really give anything away in the earlier games but it does make you want to play it to see what happened.

I can confirm this. I started with 4 and I think that made me a lot more willing to invest my time in 3.

Yakuza 4 is so good. Can't wait for 5 to hit the states.

[s0]

cool, will buy 4 at some point.

[JWK5]

Got Dragon Age: Inquisition installed on our two PS3s so my wife and I can give the game a go once it cools down a bit this evening. It looks good, so hopefully it hooks.

[MeshGearFox]

These things:

[oahda]

Apparently I'd had the first episode of Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island on my iPad for like three years, mistakenly thinking it was the HD remake of the original game, and never playing it (had already played the original until I got completely stuck years before), but we finally noticed that it was actually a different game the other day and played through the whole episode.

Guybrush is as unlikeable as ever, but it was fun. Good difficulty, I think. We did pretty well, but we've played loads of these games lately and learned to try the most stupid ideas, so it's probably more difficult for newcomers. Got a few laughs out of the humour too.

Only thing that bothers me is that they've split each episode into five full-price apps. I think that's pretty shitty. Can't play more now due to lack of money, but will be getting the rest of the episodes when possible even tho I dislike the monetisation here.

-----

Also gonna shamelessly advertise a game an acquaintance of mine released on Steam a little while ago, because it really is good and it's what I'm playing right now:

Flem

Old-school platformer. Very difficult and dependent on fine-tuned skill and dexterous fingers. On par with Super Meat Boy IMO and does come with the same instant restart upon the many failures you will have.

Spent way too long trying to finish a ridiculous level yesterday before we gave up (and tried the Masochisia beta way too long after I got the download like two weeks or more ago — gotta get around to giving Jon my feedback on that), and this morning I finally finished it in less than ten minutes probably. Great feeling.

Also some simple(?) story going on between every ten or so levels. Just reached another one of those sections but I'm waiting for gf to finish a Skype call before we can move on together.

EDIT:
The place I had reach while waiting for her was apparenly the end of the game.

Pretty short all in all, but the difficulty along with the fact that now of course we have to stubbornly speedrun all the levels to get all the medals makes it a pretty long experience after all. c:

[JWK5]

If Dragon Age: Inquisition has taught me anything, it is that no matter how much I claim I don't really like collect-a-thons I will still obsessively run around vacuuming up every (probably worthless) item in sight. Ever since the early NES Final Fantasy games I've developed the habit to compulsively check every box, barrel, or anything that even remotely looks like it might be holding some kind of loot content.

By far, the game to trigger this compulsion into its most extreme was Radiata Stories which has you kicking whatever object you intend to search. The thing is, whatever you kicked responded with a funny little animation (tables shuffle with the items on top bouncing around, barrels wobble, etc.). Even the most random, seemingly static objects in the environment had unique animations when kicked. The loot-hoovering was pushed to an extreme because you could kick and have loot bounce out of the most random objects. The game was essentially a kleptomaniac's playground. You could also kick NPCs which would either trigger funny dialogue or cause you to duel them. The kicks weren't even some hardcore karate kicks or something, they were just little asshole-ish shin kicks (which suited the humorously obnoxious nature of the protagonist). I hope they put Radiata Stories on the PS2 classics on the PSN, I love that game.

Anyways, the moral of the story is somehow loot becomes even more addicting when attempting to find and obtain it results in a bunch of interesting and unique animations or other little extra touches. Also, Dragon Age: Inquisition is pretty fun so far (and I like the search radar-like function, it makes loot gathering fun).

[Keops]

During my dev breaks I've been playing with Terraria's 1.3 patch. Lots of stuff, definitely one of my favorite sandbox games.

[MeshGearFox]

Been playing Morrowind a lot. Basically without any mods besides the official ones and some community bug fixes. Having actually figured out how the combat works, instead of just modding it into whatever because I didn't understand why I kept missing, I'm really enjoying it.

I remember that the emptiness of the city exteriors and the lack of NPC schedules initially pissed me off but playing it now, they're both kind of essential to the creepy, forlorn atmosphere that the game has.

Also

[Uber]

Terraria. Always thought the game was boring, until I started playing multiplayer with some people I know

[ThemsAllTook]

Legend of Grimrock 2 continues to amaze. What a gem. Just finished the Herder's Den event.

My Terraria partner-to-be is currently sick and unable to play/record, so I'm sitting on my hands until he's better so I don't spoil anything for myself. Looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Been playing Morrowind a lot. Basically without any mods besides the official ones and some community bug fixes. Having actually figured out how the combat works, instead of just modding it into whatever because I didn't understand why I kept missing, I'm really enjoying it.

I remember that the emptiness of the city exteriors and the lack of NPC schedules initially pissed me off but playing it now, they're both kind of essential to the creepy, forlorn atmosphere that the game has.

Also

I need a name!

Legend of Grimrock 2 continues to amaze. What a gem. Just finished the Herder's Den event.

My Terraria partner-to-be is currently sick and unable to play/record, so I'm sitting on my hands until he's better so I don't spoil anything for myself. Looking forward to sinking my teeth into it.

I watched you play a little g2 on youtube. The game looks good but I want to finish the last 2 levels of G1 before I take the plunge.