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[Nillo]

I just spent an entire evening reading the digital rulebook for the Mage Knight board game and oh my goodness oh my damn.

[s0]

not really sure what Sinclair means by railroaded. the game is fairly linear and straightforward but not oppressively so.

what i meant is that the "model of progression" or w/e you call it is comparable to mass effect, i.e. no real sense of an interconnected world, lots of cutscenes, very little exploration etc. if you're fine with that, great, it's just not what i personally look for in an rpg.

[deathtotheweird]

oh, right. yeah that's true. though I don't see it as a problem, because there wasn't a lack of anything to do. weird to see that as a complaint, feels like you're docking points becuase the game isn't what you want it to be when it wasn't that type of game to begin with.

I started playing Assassin's Creed 3, which came free with my video card, and it's pretty bad. I was hoping they would have improved it since last I played, which was the first one. But nope, still just as dull as ever. Terrible writing and terribly dull gameplay. Really can't believe people still pay money for this series.

[crowe]

I picked up that Painkiller HD sequel/remake/whatever thing in the steam sale. It's damn fun, though apparently very short (two hours and I've done 4 out of 13 levels) -- probably because Farm 51, the developers, are all ex People Can Fly devs to begin with. Wouldn't make you a fan of the original if you weren't already, but I am, so I've been enjoying myself.

[Dragonmaw]

@Samtagonist:

I've not beaten any of the Hitman games, but Absolution is sure as shit better than what i played of the first two. What awful turgid diarrhea messes of games. I haven't played Blood Money but I hear it's pretty good.

I understand the scoring system complaint, although I feel like it's a trade-off. It encourages me to play the "silent assassin" way without giving me outright failure conditions if I don't. That's kinda nice.

Regarding the story, I get this weird grindhouse schlock vibe from it and I'm pretty sure it's intentional. Honestly I thought all the Hitman games were supposed to be like that so I wasn't really surprised. People being stupid: the videogame.

You don't mash a button, you just hold it. It's a weird mechanical way to explain "you drop suspicion from people who know you aren't a [profession] by acting a bit like that profession." Honestly, I played the whole game in suit first time through, so I didn't really experience that.

I didn't really have any preconceptions or notions about what a Hitman game was supposed to be (except terrible) when I started Absolution, so it felt relatively alright to me. Sneak around and interact with all these different ways to kill a guy. I can see how people don't like it, though, especially given the mechanical changes from previous titles.

[Reyold]

Right now, I'm playing Super Meat Boy, Mega Man 9, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Bangai-O Spirits, and Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins. Occasionally a few others.

[crowe]

I didn't care for Absolution, but I'm willing to admit it's miles better than Hitman 1 (one of the worst stealth games, if not games in general, I've ever seen released commercially)

[Alevice]

Are the painkiller series worth bouying?

[s0]

judging from painkiller black, theyre pretty shallow but decent fun if you feel like shooting up a bunch of monsters.

[Alevice]

Seems good too me.

[AshfordPride]

I don't think anyone is going to defend Hitman: Codename 47.  I remember liking Silent Assassin enough to get the next one, but man I was probably only thirteen when I played that game, and I think I even had it for the Gamecube, so I don't think my opinion of that game is very admissible.  In fact I remember Silent Assassin having long segments revolving around infiltration without killing anyone, a particularly agonizing segment involving going into a Japanese castle in a snow storm comes to mind...  That fucking sucked.  I remember going through a later part of that level flawlessly only to fucking blow killing the guy because all of a sudden the floor creaks.  Pretty bullshit.  But by Contracts things got hammered out and I felt like things started to really find a groove, and by Blood Money they really got their act together.  It was just really nice to see a C-List game just sort of get it's shit together, each time refining itself a bit more and making those rough edges a little smoother.  It could just be because it's been between six years and ten years since I played the last games, but I really don't have anything but positive to say about the previous two Hitman games.

I hear the term Grindhouse being thrown around a lot here.  It comes up in reviews a lot, and I can definitely see it.  The game is certainly trying to grab at that sort of black humor and general self-aware sort of goofiness that the previous Hitman games had.  You feel that they wanted it so badly.  When you see a woman in latex fetish Nun outfit produce an RPG from nowhere to blow up a motel while saying 'Go with god, mothafucka'...  You feel that they really, really wanted that sort of aesthetic.  But you can't over think this shit.  I feel like this is the most calculated effort at being a goofball I've ever seen, and that just doesn't come of as genuine.  You keep coming across these deformed or disabled people who are just sort of there...  Everyone in this story except Hitman is this outlandishly ridiculous foil of complete absurdity.  The bad guy of this game is Ron Swanson with a prosthetic arm, the sub bad guys are Rootin' Tootin' Joker and ten foot tall Danny Trejo, and then the SUB SUB SUB SUB bad guys are all a bunch of bizarre hicks and lunatics.  It's too much!  It's just too much!  It's the same problem that Saints Row 3 had, it all is just too aware that it HAS to be oozing this black humor at any chance it can, and then you end up putting Hitman in a chipmunk outfit.  Twice.

I don't like how cover works.  It seems to absolve (!!!) you of any sort of suspicion people have of you, so it forces you to be glued to cover at all chances.  Even wearing a disguise, it makes more sense to spend the whole game crouched behind a stack of crates.  I can never feel like I'm hiding in plain sight, it always feels like just walking around with a disguise is the least effective way of doing things, which was the CORE IDEA of this franchise.  Now we get to sit behind cover, listen to scripted conversations between the guards, and then slink away to our next bit of cover.  It's just not very excited.

You know, it's weird.  Because the Hitman games have ALWAYS been structured in very precise and scripted ways.  It's usually pretty obvious what sort of deal a level has, there's usually a guy having a smoke break near a body-sized container, or the target will happily and regularly stand under a wobbly chandelier.  Maybe I was just a lot more accepting of these things in 2006.  It felt fine back then, even natural, and discovering what the level wanted you to do and then executing it by the numbers was always a satisfying experience.  Now everything you can do is reduced to a notebook of obtuse clues, and what you're supposed to do doesn't seem as clear.  It seems like the smartest thing to do in a level is to just fucking kill everything so you can scope out everything, because it's the only way you can get to most of the level without the constant threat of score penalty or getting shot.  They've really taken away your freedom to go anywhere provided you can get the right disguise, now it feels like I'm meant to stay out of sight 99% of the time.

And the scoring mechanic is abysmally broken and painfully unsatisfying.  Nothing like going through the entire level with a negative score and then having a few thousand points dumped on me to see I've beaten the world average for this level.  It could've been a good idea, but it's implemented in the worst possible way.  I mean, why do challenges provide score multipliers?  That just ensures that you'll NEVER get the highest possible score the first two, three, four...  times.  I don't feel any incentive to play the levels RIGHT, which is something that a game like Hitman NEEDS.  There's the biggest problem, is that most of the time I can pop pop pop watchin' mothafuckas drop and beat a level in seconds instead of breaking my back to get a checkmark in my lil' notebook.

I went into this expecting like...  Maybe a casualized Hitman?  Or maybe a game that wasn't a lot like Hitman but still good?  I don't even know what I'm playing here.

I got more gripes, but I'm just being redundant here.  I don't like this game.  I've almost taken it to completion for the sake of closure, but I can say with a good amount of confidence that this is a bad game.

[Lauchsuppe]

I'm having major fun with Legend of Grimrock. I didn't even grow up with dungeon crawlers ( I remember many tries to get into Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny when I was a kid, but didn't have any success with it) and always thought the sheer lack of conversation and story would kind of ruin the experience for me, but I was wrong.

[:^)]

@hitmanconversation:

I think Blood Money is great. I find it fun every time I play it.

[Tanner]

Been playing the shit out of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. Best one since FoMT, but holy hell does it start slow.

[SirNiko]

I played the original Harvest Moon, and I think the N64 one?

How are the new Harvest Moon games different from/better than the old ones?

[ClayB]

@hitmanconversation:

I think Blood Money is great. I find it fun every time I play it.

then you'll be very sad to hear that absolution is more about sticking to cover than any of the things that blood money was refining from other hitmans

i will say though, absolution has the best feeling controls of any hitman game, mechanically it's a trainwreck, but moving around and grabbing items feels a lot better.

[crowe]

Dark Sector

[saibot216]

I picked up that Painkiller HD sequel/remake/whatever thing in the steam sale. It's damn fun, though apparently very short (two hours and I've done 4 out of 13 levels) -- probably because Farm 51, the developers, are all ex People Can Fly devs to begin with. Wouldn't make you a fan of the original if you weren't already, but I am, so I've been enjoying myself.

Ooh, such a fun series.

[crowe]

Disciples III Renaissance

[Richard Kain]

The copy of Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward that I had ordered on-line came in on Saturday. I've been playing it ever since and it has been a lot of fun so far. Though clearly not for everyone, it is definitely for me.

I have noticed that the Vita's screen is not always the optimal way of playing the game. The collision for the various in-game objects seems to be based on the models' polygons. For touch-picking this can make things a bit more hit-and-miss when using your finger. A stylus would probably make the experience a bit smoother, but you would need a capacitative stylus, due to the nature of the Vita's touch screen. Not a deal-breaking gripe, but something I noticed while playing.

The visuals for the game are terrific. The Vita's screen is huge, bright, and does a great job with the vibrant, colorful characters. The backgrounds are a bit more drab than I would like. The 3D models for the characters work a lot better than I had been expecting. Using 3D models for character representation in what amounts to a visual novel breaks from tradition. But I think it paid off for them here. The texturing of the models does a good job of simulating an anime style. The greater degree of animation for the characters that the 3D models permit help add to the presentation.

Overall I'd say I'm very pleased with the game. It is a great option for anyone interested in a visual novel/point-and-click adventure experience. I did find the availability of the game annoying. I couldn't find it at any retail establishments, and was eventually forced to purchase it directly off of Aksys' website. I don't mind giving the publisher my money directly, but going to such trouble for a physical copy of the title was an annoyance.