The Gaming Thread

[gunsage]

I'm not sure if STALKER will work on my computer, but one of my coworkers has it on his laptop. It definitely looks very nice and I enjoy a well done FPS every so often. Another one I was interested in was Crysis...but if I'm not able to do STALKER, I can nix that!

[Chanlin]

On Jade Empire.

I have to say I really enjoyed the various martial arts styles. I'm curious as to what if any of your favorite support styles are and if you used any of the magic or demon transformation styles at all.

I personally prefer Thousand Cuts, Spirit Thief, Crimson Tears and Legendary Strikes. This is the set up I ran through the entire game with and it served really well.

As for games to add to the mix, I know its a little old but I just got and started playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.

I have to say so far I really enjoy the game. Its got a survival rpg feel to it in that you start with next to nothing on you and have to run missions to get money and looting fallen foes is your primary source of equipment. The best factor is that it is completely non-linear and allows you to complete missions in any order. Couple that with a fairly decent FPS mechanic and you have a solid game. The story itself is somewhat interesting, but almost feels incidental. I like the idea behind the alternate future time line and it seems kind of odd.

Overall the gameplay has been really good. There are plenty of ways to tackle each encounter using superior tactics or superior firepower to your advantage. I can't say much for the AI as of yet. I will reserve more judgement for when I get further into the game, but by and large I'm quite pleased with the game and could easily lose track of time while playing it

[gunsage]

Now that I've played Touch Detective a little more, I'm ready to hand down a more "educated" opinion. Okay, here's the deal. It's very cartoony. Now, when I say that, I don't just mean it's cartoony in the way it's drawn or the wacky hijinx. Yes, it has that, but that's not the point. The real issue here is that the puzzles are done in a cartoony style. The reason this presents a problem is you often end up having to think in a very obscure way in order to solve various puzzles.

Obscure how? *SPOILER* You have to inflate someone in order to have your little buddy go under her, then later pop her so as to catch a thief. Anyway, you get the idea. Not all puzzles in the game are like this, but enough of them are to the point that even after you figure it out, you'll be scratching your head going "...What?" It's not a bad game, just very very weird. In its defense, it's a very cartoony title and has plenty of slapstick. The characters are nice and vivid and have decent personalities.

It's no Hotel Dusk, but it'll do. Speaking of adventure games, what are your favorites? I think my favorite is still Curse of Monkey Island with a runner up of Return to Zork.

[gunsage]

So yeah...since I sold Alundra, I decided to pick up some more games. No, not for the intent of selling more, though that may happen anyway. Here goes...

- Just Cause (X Box)
- Gun Valkyrie (X Box)
- Jade Empire (X Box)
- Touch Detective (DS)

Now allow me to explain...I'd only played Jade Empire out of that bunch. And it's one of the few Bioware games that grabs my attention and doesn't let go...probably because I really enjoy martial arts and sorely regret never actually getting into them. I wish the combat system was a little more involved, almost as if it was a brawler, but it's still very fun. I kinda figured I'd enjoy Touch Detective given that I really enjoyed such titles as Trace Memory, Hotel Dusk, and the Phoenix Wright games...and I do, so there.

Just Cause and Gun Valkyrie, therefore, are the anomalies. And here's the verdict...they're...okay. Just Cause only ran me...$12? So no biggie there. GV was about $5, but so no biggie there either. Why only "okay?" Just Cause reminds me of Scarface, except that it's anti-drugs and you're looking to overthrow a government regime, not rival druglords. Further, it's also like they threw Mercenaries together with it what with the abilities to signal for drops and all kinds of crazy additionals.

For example, you can parachute at just about anytime. You can hop on top of speeding vehicles and comandeer them. You can paraglide...I mean, really, I could spend an entire page just talking about all of it (and might later). In concerns to GV, well, it was recommended. I can't really find the review that initially supported it, but come on...it was cheap and it's not TERRIBLE, but clearly it's not on par with modern shooters...even fun arcade shooters like Panzer Dragoon Orta, which is really sad, because that was also done by Sega.

And now to more properly explain both Touch Detective and Jade Empire (for the few of you still living in a cave that never tried it). In concerns to JE, it's kinda like KOTOR, but interesting. It's based more on martial arts than forcing its way into the Star Wars universe and while the dialogue is expansive like in KOTOR, it's not so horribly cumbersome that you get bored asking NPCs questions. A lot of PC RPG critics (me included) often whine that NPCs have all kinds of information, none of it relevant.

Sure, there are a few moments where you might feel that way here, but 90% of the time, it's relevant and concise. Perfect. And yeah, I whine about the combat, but it's not that dull and further, the plot more than makes up for it. In regards to Touch Detective...played Monkey Island? Yeah, it's kinda like that except you're a junior detective. Silly and fun.

[gunsage]

Well, it seems we get the most members commenting here while I'm on lunch, so here goes! I'm not so sure I'd call myself a "fan" of MAME, but possibly of emu in general. Right now I'm just going through a certain site and seeing what does/doesn't work...whatever does, I consider keeping, but often don't because it's either not that great or I have something much better.

Obviously, I have my favorites...

- Robocop
- Contra
- R-Type series
- Parodius series
- Block Out
- Golden Axe: Death Adder's Revenge
- Arkanoid
- Tetris
- Columns
- Aliens
- Ghosts n Goblins
- I'm Sorry!
- Bonanza Bros.
- Space Harrier
- Just about any Pac Man derivative

Then Capcom system favorites...

- Final Fight
- Cadillacs & Dinosaurs
- Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo
- The Punisher

Then Neo Geo favorites...

- Sengoku
- Alpha Mission 2
- Fatal Fury series
- King of Fighter series
- Crossed Swords
- Puzzle Bobble 4

And so on. BTW, PM away. I only got about 100 over what I needed to pass Network+, but I can make some suggestions on what to study and such, certainly.

Edit: BTW, w00t to me for having a pic up in the albums now!

[Gravekeeper]

Damn....I haven't finished it yet and was just going off what I had played. So far the only complaint is I wish the henchmen would stop fighting so much. Luckily if it sucks, I still love replaying the first one.

It gets like a B grade movie. You keep playing just to see how much worse it can get. -.-

But that ending...ugh. I picked it up right after it came out and finished it in a couple weeks and I'm *still* pissed about that ending. There's an expansion now too which one of my friends picked up to see how bad it is and its continuing the epic fail rather faithfully according to him.

[Shangri-laschild]

Neverwinter Nights 2 is epic failure to be bluntly honest. Its not made by Bioware. It was a bug ridden horribly coded mess when it was first released and isn't much better currently. The engine requires far more system resources then it should. Tons of stuff was left unfinished ( This will become painfully obvious when you try to follow character subplots ).

As for the game itself the story is awful, you'll end up wanting to kill half the characters and the ending ( If you can call it an ending. Feels more like the budget ran out. ) will make you want to choke the writers with a pillow case. Its not even an ending. Its like a cruel joke on the players because the writers hate you. ;p

The only upside to the whole game was the stronghold part. Other then that...<wince>

You have been warned.

The entire game is a running joke among my friends. ><

Go find yourself a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 if you want a fantastic rpg ;p

Damn....I haven't finished it yet and was just going off what I had played. So far the only complaint is I wish the henchmen would stop fighting so much. Luckily if it sucks, I still love replaying the first one.

[RichS]

As far as MAME goes, I pretty much have what I want (over 2000 titles), but I've been investigating more titles and adding more Neo Geo titles while I'm at it...especially if they don't work well/at all on other Neo Geo emus.

Another MAME fan! I've been with MAME since 0.033U6 (number changed to fit the new version scheme - the current version is .122u8). It's great to play all those arcade games from my much younger years... And it's amazing that they not only add games, but continually improve emulation on the supported ones.

I'm hoping my knowledge with Network+...

Off-topic - could I send you a PM about getting Network+ certified? I'm in a networking class, and if I get certified, I get an automatic A.

[gunsage]

They create a seemingly fabulous world then drop you in the middle of it and say "Here, go find your own entertainment". Then the world itself, while amazingly large, tends to be rather shallow once you pick away at the surface.

Wow...you nailed it right on the head. Again, I don't mind sandbox games, but it eventually feels lazy on the developer's part. On the one hand, you develop a game that operates to YOUR whim, so that's a nice touch, but on the other...wo ist derr plot? There are a few others I'd criticize of this, but surprisingly they were more addictive to me...

- Gothic
- Gothic 2
- Metal Saga
- Uplink
- Shadowrun (Genesis version, though I suppose you could count the SNES version also)

As you can probably tell, I don't play a whole lot of sandbox-style games. It's not that I need to be told where to go and what to do, nor that I want to be completely handheld. I guess what it comes down to is I like a nice blending of sandbox and lineality. For example, in the GTA series, it's very sandbox, but also mission-based. Even then, the missions only slightly hold your hand and often require you to be creative, as there's not necessarily one right way to do something.

Then you have games like Final Fantasy X where there's basically no backtracking, the world isn't open, but rather, quite linear, etc. FFX was both amazing and disappointing for reasons like this. By the way, I absolutely suck at Uplink. Ironically, I'm hoping my knowledge with Network+ and my impending knowledge of Security+ will help with that, but often I'm found out rather quickly in the game. I ought to install that again and start playing it again. Hmm.

By the way, though my posts are long (sorry), I totally forgot to mention what I was playing. I really couldn't decide what to play, so I knocked out a chapter of Fire Emblem for the GC, then knocked out a couple of chapters on Suffering: Ties that Bind for PS2. I'm still going over various tables on Visual Pinball and testing them to see if I ought to keep them or if it's even worth it (crappy quality, table's not fun, etc.). As far as MAME goes, I pretty much have what I want (over 2000 titles), but I've been investigating more titles and adding more Neo Geo titles while I'm at it...especially if they don't work well/at all on other Neo Geo emus.

Beyond this, I'm investigating the possibility of selling older strategy guides and I'm probably going to group together various PS1 titles that aren't selling or would sell very low anyway for an auction. There...that's about it.

[Gravekeeper]

GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Geez. Seriously. Same thoughts going on over here. Plus a few choice words about the "radiant AI" and the scaling of EVER SINGLE MONSTER to your power level. What the hell is the point of leveling if you're never going to be able to go back and one-shot that bastage monster that killed you a dozen times when you're level 3?

Ah yes, the scaling monster spawning. You could spent months playing and finally obtain some legendary death sword of lore that took <insert fantasy race here> a 100 years to forge using the finest craftsman in the world out of a metal so rare even an ounce of it is worth an entire kingdom.......and the game will respond by handing said sword out on every street corner to every drunkard, beggar, petty thief, rat, crab and elk in the entire game world.

[Broomjockey]

I seem to be a minority here, I'm not really a fan of Bethesda's work. They create a seemingly fabulous world then drop you in the middle of it and say "Here, go find your own entertainment". Then the world itself, while amazingly large, tends to be rather shallow once you pick away at the surface.

So while I'd love a Fallout 3, I'm really worried its going to be Oblivion all over again. Oblivion looked fantastic....and thats kind of all it did. -.-

...

...

>_>
<_<

GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Geez. Seriously. Same thoughts going on over here. Plus a few choice words about the "radiant AI" and the scaling of EVER SINGLE MONSTER to your power level. What the hell is the point of leveling if you're never going to be able to go back and one-shot that bastage monster that killed you a dozen times when you're level 3?

Of course, I sorta cheated by making what I dubbed "The Ultimate Spell of UberDoom" as it did every type of damage, and gave 100% weakness to every type of damage. Cast that 2 or 3 times and nothing really survives. It was their spellcrafting utility, I just made the stupidly powerful spell.

[Gravekeeper]

I'm cautiously optimistic about Fallout 3. I loved 1 & 2 but to be honest, and I seem to be a minority here, I'm not really a fan of Bethesda's work. They create a seemingly fabulous world then drop you in the middle of it and say "Here, go find your own entertainment". Then the world itself, while amazingly large, tends to be rather shallow once you pick away at the surface.

So while I'd love a Fallout 3, I'm really worried its going to be Oblivion all over again. Oblivion looked fantastic....and thats kind of all it did. -.-

[gunsage]

Yeah, I absolutely love the voice overs and story of Bard's Tale. What I don't like, however, is the main reason my wife won't play it...crap camera. And yeah, I get it, it's going for a more classic style view. It's the same one that's done in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, which, much like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or Crystal Chronicles, is an abortion of a series on a GRAND scale...and yet, isn't absolutely terrible.

And notice I didn't include X-2 or one of the Legend titles. Here's why. Legend 1 was kinda crappy, but I really enjoyed Legend 2 and actually completed Legend 3. MQ wasn't TOO bad, but still not quite on par with most FF games. Kind of a FF Lite, if you will. CC...ugh...what a failure. Think Gauntlet, but really really...uh...worse. That, and much like Unlimited SaGa, you don't actually "level up," but rather, you select from ONE upgrade after a level and that's assuming you found them in the level. Screw that.

Now, in concerns to X-2, let's think about this one thing at a time...

+ Nice active battle system with all kinds of awesome features.
- ZOMG GIRL POWER, LIKE OMG, SRSLY.
+ Take FFX world, add missions, add chapters. It's a system that works, admittedly.
- Voice overs get annoying. QUICK.
+ Dress spheres are an awesome touch. Kind of a futuristic version of jobs.
- Almost any side game was crap.
+ Good music. Great sound effects (minus uber-annoying voice overs).

Admittedly, it's not the best in the FF series. But at least it's not...this. So yeah...there are worse things you could play. Speaking of Fallout...anyone interested in the upcoming Fallout 3? You know, I never beat ANY of the Fallout titles, but I really loved them all the same. Honestly, what I end up doing, like in most sandbox titles is going "Oh, never seen you before" to random NPCs, saving, then attempting to steal everything off of them.

If I fail, no biggie...I load. And I keep doing it until either I figure it's not going to happen...or it does. This is how I got a submachine gun without paying for it relatively quickly. Aaaaaaand speaking of sandbox. Have any of you tried either Metal Saga or Steambot Chronicles? Metal Saga's pretty fun...it's actually a remake of Metal Max Returns, which is ALSO a remake. Can't really recommend SB unless you can tolerate crappy controls, but it's okay. Well, that's about it.

[Ducky Dew]

A chuckle for the Guild Wars players:

Was just in Vasburg Armory, Int Dis 1, and there was a group of Kurzick soldiers, chasing a group of Luxon soldiers, chasing Kurzicks, chasing Luxons, around and around a single tree.

Funniest glitch I've seen in a long time.

[Chanlin]

The Bard's Tale remake is actually fairly decent. Lots of good humor, and the narrator is Tony Jay (aka the voice of Megabyte from Reboot) and the Bard is voice by the much well known Cary Elwes. Those two alone make the game worth playing IMO.

If you've played any of the Baldurs Gate games for PS2 then you have a fair idea of what to expect in terms of game play as the engine was simply copied for The Bard's Tale.

Whats best about it all is the Bard though. Hes not out to save the world because he wants to. He's out to do it to get everyone to leave him the hell alone about his destiny etc.

Almost every conversation has a (Be Nice) - (Be a Dick/Jerk/AssHole etc) response. And while its fun to go with the latter response there are times when the former response is needed to advance the story.

Best line ever though:

Bar Maid: We have some rats in the cellar, if you would go and clean them out we... I would be most greatful (said in a sultry voice)

Bard: Why... how cliche of you love.

After

Narrator: All Hail the Bard... rat's bane and rodent slayer....

Bard: Hey hey.... you just tell the story and leave the sarcastic comments to me alright.

In any case I think its worth the play just for the humor of the game if nothing else.