Ultimate Videogame Topic 3: The Next Generation

[hasdgfas]

Started playing Evoland and Papers, Please. Both really interesting games.

[hasdgfas]

Elder Scrolls Online is garbage. I couldn't play it for more than an hour. The combat is terrible, there's no weight or feedback to it, and the entire game world is just bland. Yuck.

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That's pretty much my opinion of it too. Absolutely terrible. Would not play if it were a free-to-play MMO.

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Finished up a couple marathon days of Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies. Very, very good. Exactly what I wanted from a PW game. Might even be the best one I've played, there were a lot less times evidence needed to be presented that didn't really make sense. I'd had multiple times in prior games where I couldn't figure out what evidence to present at all, and I didn't have that in this one. Very well done.

[hasdgfas]

I got my friend Sonic 06 for his birthday (as a joke). He played it for two hours, and let me tell you:

It's the kind of game you have to play to believe. Youtube video's don't do it justice. It's looks so much worse in 60 FPS HD. And the controls-- dear god--- they are so difficult.

The Game Grumps might just do it justice.

[hasdgfas]

Recurring question/challenge time.

Can someone find a good reason for me to purchase a game for my 3DS?
Bonus points if you push me over the edge to get a Wii U; there are some games that I'd like to try but I'm very shy about that price tag.

uhhh because 3DS has a fuckload of good games

do i win

LIGHTNING ROUND: which ones do you recommend

Zelda: Link Between Worlds(incredibly well done Zelda game)
Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Luigi's Mansion 2
Pokemon X and/or Y
Mario & Luigi Dream Team

Really, just anything in this video will probably be a good choice.

[hasdgfas]

Recurring question/challenge time.

Can someone find a good reason for me to purchase a game for my 3DS?
Bonus points if you push me over the edge to get a Wii U; there are some games that I'd like to try but I'm very shy about that price tag.

uhhh because 3DS has a fuckload of good games

do i win

LIGHTNING ROUND: which ones do you recommend

Zelda: Link Between Worlds(incredibly well done Zelda game)
Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Luigi's Mansion 2
Pokemon X and/or Y
Mario & Luigi Dream Team

Really, just anything in this video will probably be a good choice.

yep there's the list

Also I'd check out some of the indie eshop games, like Pushmo. That game is hours of brainbending fun

Pushmo is in the video actually

[hasdgfas]

Just starting Batman: Arkham Origins.

Starting Dark Souls shortly as well, and those will be my two projects for a while.

[hasdgfas]

I refuse to do betas. I'll pay for finished games, and that's that.

I like doing

free

betas to help out the devs and give them my thoughts on how to improve the game and/or find bugs.

[hasdgfas]

Anyway
TALK OF FALLOUT 4 soon

YES!!!! I loved fallout 3 but I was really disappointed with New Vegas. I hope Fallout 4 goes back to the survival/horror.

Really? Wow, that's the opposite of what I've heard from most people. I hadn't played fallout before 3, but I thought New Vegas was just a far more polished game.

[hasdgfas]

I didn't mind it, but it felt so out of place in the context of the narrative. I liked the Broken Steel ending slightly more.

The Fallout 3 ending was incredibly frustrating for me because

I couldn't send Fawkes when he's IMMUNE TO RADIATION

.

Plus, it just felt like a very predictable, fairly boring story, while New Vegas was far more interesting to me.

[hasdgfas]

I didn't mind it, but it felt so out of place in the context of the narrative. I liked the Broken Steel ending slightly more.

The Fallout 3 ending was incredibly frustrating for me because

I couldn't send Fawkes when he's IMMUNE TO RADIATION

.

Plus, it just felt like a very predictable, fairly boring story, while New Vegas was far more interesting to me.

I think they patched that with Broken Steel.

Well, sort of.

You could send him in, but apparently it's "selfish" to do so, and "the bad ending", which doesn't make any sense. It's smart. Nobody's getting hurt at all, but apparently, because the point of that whole stupid thing is "selflessness" you're supposed to "sacrifice yourself" unnecessarily.

[hasdgfas]

Has anyone here played The Witcher 2?

I played it. I really, really enjoyed the story and the world, but the combat frustrated me quite a bit and I just threw it on easy so I could get through it.

I much preferred Witcher 1, which had a much more understandable combat system.

[hasdgfas]

Meh, I have so much more to do. Like play Civ V more. I wanna do playthoughs of Mass Effect, Fallout 3, 2 Worlds 2. I wanna finally sit down and play Borderlands and Rising Dead. I',m a bit Old Republic'd out but yea...if KC gives me his key I'll try it out but I don't think I'll play it that much so if someone else REALLY REALLY REALLY wants it then it should go to them.

It's only really good with friends, I think, because it gets ridiculously chaotic.

[hasdgfas]

I really enjoyed the

story

of Infinite, as well as the world. The problem with Infinite was the combat. It was

terrible

. I still had fun with it, but I would've had WAY more fun if the combat was actually good.

[hasdgfas]

I enjoyed the experience of Heavy Rain. It felt like a B-movie.

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Both are interesting games but Wind Waker wins massively in terms of game length.

Wind Waker is also my favorite Zelda game, having played most of them(not Skyward Sword).

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okami is amazing and excellent and everyone's type of game, but I played it on PS2 so I can't speak for the wii version
and NSMB is kind of lame.

I hear the Wii version is significantly better.

NSMB is great with 3 friends and alcohol. Otherwise it's just a slightly more chaotic mario game.

Galaxy games are great, definitely pick those up.

[hasdgfas]

So I've played a little bit of the wind waker HD having gotten it as a free download for buying mario kart, and what's one of the first things you run into when you start the game?

This.



I have no idea why Nintendo felt the need to include that detail with the kid. It's all I can think about when I think about that first island now.

That kid <3 He's just so gross.

Also I'm considering finally finishing Psychonauts, from post-Black Velvetopia onward...on father's day? :/

I may have to try playing Psychonauts again. I got stuck in some fish level where I was a giant.

[hasdgfas]

The real question is how you managed to stop playing in LUNGFISHOPOLIS.

This. Lungfishopolis is probably the easiest level in the game?

Because I'm terrible at games. Except platformers. Those I'm good at. Lungfishopolis was not a platformer and was NOT easy, at least not that I remember. I kept dying to things that were shooting at me.

[hasdgfas]

Hey guys, I want to start playing a new game. Has to be on Steam, new-ish, and have a really good story. Suggestions?

Saint's Row IV, Sid Meier's Civilization V, Banished, Portal 2, Watch Dogs

Two of those games(Civ 5 and Banished) don't have a story at all per se, and Watch Dogs's story wasn't compelling enough finish the game or to stop me from playing the minigames.

I'd suggest Sleeping Dogs, Thomas Was Alone, and Papers, Please.

Don't waste your time on Thomas Was Alone. It was mindnumbingly pretentious and boring. The puzzles are also stupid easy and don't really develop any difficulty over time.

I loved Thomas Was Alone. It may have been a bit pretentious, but I found it fascinating, with a really interesting story and fun gameplay.

[hasdgfas]

heard its pretty good

I've heard there's a lot of Orc-killing, but it's very good at orc-killing.

[hasdgfas]

Trying to actually play all the way through Psychonauts finally. Actually got through my bane of previous playthroughs, Lungfishopolis.

[hasdgfas]

Stomping around as a giant was fine, but until this playthrough, I just kept getting killed more quickly than I wanted. This time, I guess I just hunkered down and finished it. I hear that the game gets significantly better moving forward, so looking forward to it.

[hasdgfas]

I am also a huge FE fan, and have liked all of them except Shadow Dragon, which feels super clunky to me after playing the newer games.

Don't play FE8(Sacred Stones) if you dislike being able to grind. Sacred Stones had that as well with the two towers or whatever they were called.

[hasdgfas]

If you bought DA2 while it was on Steam, you still have it on Steam though, so there's that?

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I'm looking forward to DA:I, but I feel like I need to play through the first two again, because it's been way too long.

I will also say that, even though it's blatantly unfinished, KOTOR2 is still one of my top 5 games of all time. It's absolutely worth playing, simply because it does things with the Star Wars universe that I don't think I've ever seen in any other game.

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Shadow Dragon is, to me, easily the worst FE that has come out in North America because it's a remake of the first game ever made in the series, and it shows.

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I'm trying to play through the entire series again before I start Inquisition. Currently a bit over halfway done with origins. Forgot how much fun I had with this.

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I loved Origins, but I couldn't bring myself to play it a 12th time. One of my existing characters just had to do.

This is only the second or third time I've played through it, and it's been a few years since the last time.

[hasdgfas]

Final Fantasy 12 was a LOT of fun.

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I finished Dragon Age: Origins for my full series playthrough. Also worked my way through the Darkspawn Chronicles and Leliana's Song DLCs. Just started Awakening, had forgotten that they had added Stamina Draughts, which I'm ecstatic about, playing as a Rogue.

And since I can't keep myself to one game at a time, I've also started The Talos Principle. This game is sweet so far. Philosophical sci-fi Portal is my best description of it after an hour, and I am

loving

it.

[hasdgfas]

Nope. I'm planning to do Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt after Awakening, since it looks like they're chronologically after it.

[hasdgfas]

I just finished Dragon Age: Awakening. I had forgotten how ridiculously buggy this game was, leading to the complete inability to complete two companion quests, and

Velanna's Joining

. Thank goodness for the Keep, I guess.

[hasdgfas]

And then

Oghren's companion quest

, which you can only do if you're perfect with every single dialogue involving him for the entire game, as far as I can tell.

And then I ran into the

Silverite Mine bug, where all my currently worn equipment disappeared

. That was fun. I'm glad I had a prior save.

[hasdgfas]

One of the big problems I have with the companions in Awakening is that you mostly gain approval from them by giving them gifts- if you don't find every gift, or get confused and give one to the wrong person (and it's much less intuitive as to which gift is intending for whom), you can miss out on the bonus. This is especially bad for Oghren, since his approval resets for Awakening, but his gift counter doesn't, so any gifts you gave him in Origins will make gifting less effective in Awakening.

Also infuriating is that most of the companion dialogues are triggered not by talking to them, but finding the right interaction spot in the world somewhere. So if you don't take every companion to every location with you, you'll miss out on chances for approval.

Yeah. I like the fact that all the gifts are more unique as opposed to slight variants on the same type of item. But it makes it

much

harder to figure out who wants what. Unless you have the conversations with them about the arbitrary items before you find the items. I still really like awakening's story more than Origins, but Origins is cleaner and more polished, and Party Camp is the best.

[hasdgfas]

Sigrun was easily my favorite, which is why I was very angry that I couldn't do her companion quest due to bugs, and therefore couldn't bring her into Drake's Fall, because I was intended to

ally with The Architect

.

I also preferred Velanna to Anders, and Justice is awesome. Oghren is more Oghren, Nathaniel I like a lot as well, but I can understand describing him as bland.

[hasdgfas]

Yeah, I think the fact that I was Human Noble Queen in this playthrough helped with my opinion of Nathaniel. I felt he was pretty bland in my prior playthrough(s), but none of them were Human Noble backgrounds.

[hasdgfas]

That was a nice change. The fact that disagreement always meant disapproval really frustrated me, because there's such a thing as friendly disagreement and discussion.

[hasdgfas]

I had a pretty productive last week videogame-wise.

Finished Dragon Age Origins: Awakening as well as Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt. Definitely enjoyed it again, definitely happy with most of the choices I made, looking forward to seeing the minor ways that later games take those choices into account! Cynicism aside, I've started Dragon Age 2, and am enjoying it the second time through again. I still think it got way too much hate.

Also finished The Banner Saga. I found this to be a very fun turn-based strategy game with some interesting overworld mechanics similar to Oregon Trail. Fascinating world, wonderful art style, I enjoyed this a lot, although the pacing could have been a bit better, I felt. I had a bit less connection to the characters than I hoped, but the really interesting world and good battle mechanics definitely kept me playing. If you like the gameplay of Fire Emblem, definitely give this a try.

Last night I finally got around to checking whether Psychonauts has Steam Cloud saves, dreading having to restart it again. However, it does! I was able to start right in Black Velvetopia and power through to finish it. I had heard such terrible things about the Meat Circus and figured it couldn't be as bad as all that. It wasn't, although I can definitely understand the dislike. It's clearly not as well polished as the rest of the game, and the vertical escort mission that you have to completely restart if you fail one part of it (or fall to the ground) was very frustrating, but I don't actually think it was that difficult, just overly punishing in that one section. I had more trouble with Lungfishopolis's infinite tanks. Definitely worth a playthrough as a really good 3D platformers.

Time to work on a couple more things. I think Shadowrun Returns and Borderlands: The PreSequel for sure, along with Dragon Age 2 obviously.

[hasdgfas]

That...was not that difficult. That was significantly easier than the

time your jumps correctly as weird things throw daggers at you and a spinning wheel so that you can grab the daggers and then jump to a platform

part.

[hasdgfas]

I wouldn't have minded it if you weren't also

on a time limit, due to having to save Lil Oly

[hasdgfas]

I finished Shadowrun Returns last night. Starting Dragonfall soon, I've heard it's significantly better, looking forward to it.

Also trying to finish up The Talos Principle. That game is fantastic. Portal meets Stanley Parable is probably the best way I can describe it.

[hasdgfas]

Re: GW2... it was good, but there's kind of nothing to do after awhile. And the lack of a trinity really REALLY isn't a good thing.

I don't actually agree with the lack of trinity being a bad thing. It just wasn't that well implemented, since you couldn't tell why enemies changed who they aggroed or how to change them back to the heavy armors.

[hasdgfas]

I finished Talos Principle today. Really cool game. I'm a bit disappointed that it's a bit difficult to know

all the places I should go back to in order to find different bits of story or endings

, but it was a heck of a lot of fun, and felt like a much deeper Portal.

[hasdgfas]

I liked KOTOR1 a lot, but KOTOR2 is so much more nuanced and so much better that I'm still angry it wasn't finished. It's so clear it wasn't finished.

KOTOR1 is a fine Star Wars game, it's exactly what you'd expect out of a Star Wars game.

KOTOR2 is a great game overall, with much more subtlety and shades of grey than anything I've seen in the series since.

[hasdgfas]

I'm going to spend an appreciable portion of the next day(s) on Deus Ex HR

advice?

Did you get the Director's Cut?

[hasdgfas]

I'm going to spend an appreciable portion of the next day(s) on Deus Ex HR

advice?

Did you get the Director's Cut?

I bought it when it came out and my computer wasn't good enough to run it at the time

The Director's Cut? Ok. If you have that, you can actually focus less on combat if you like as they updated the boss fights somewhat. If you don't have the director's cut, you need to put a bit more of your development points into combat abilities, since the boss fights focus more on that and less on the stealth/exploration aspects of upgrading.

[hasdgfas]

the not-actually-open-ended openendedness was really getting on my nerves, so I switched to Talos Principle

I have the day off tomorrow so we'll see what I end up doing then

Talos Principle is great. One of my favorite games I've played lately.

[hasdgfas]

I was a big fan of DXHR, just not the boss fights without the Director's Cut changes. It felt a little clunky at times, but the atmosphere, setting, and pretty solid story was still a lot of fun.

[hasdgfas]

I'm not very far into the game yet, but so far, all I've done is walk down corriders and hit attack when my gauge fills. So far, I haven't done anything that feels like the game actually cares whether I play it or not.

The entire game is like that. The area that JDodge is talking about is just an area with (tons of) sidequests that appears right before endgame.

I've heard Lightning Returns is really solid, though.

I have heard the opposite. That it is the worst one.

[hasdgfas]

well according to the kind of morons who blindly agree with Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander et al gamers are kill

so I guess that means games thread is kill

Let's not get into this here please.

[hasdgfas]

Man, I am really digging Bravely Default now. It felt like it was pretty slow up to now, but the gold and JP/EXP boost equipment are helping a lot with my enjoyment. This is easily the most Japanese game I have ever played though. It's so JRPG-cliche-y.

[hasdgfas]

Speaking relatively related to Bravely Default(in that it's about JRPGs), I'm super excited for Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, but I've never played an SMT game. What are some good entry points to the series? I only really need to play one game, I just want to understand the series a bit better before SMTxFE. I'd prefer something for 3DS, but PS3 is also an option.

[hasdgfas]

You know, despite being a Fire Emblem fan I'm not terribly excited for SMTxFE. Namely because it seems more like they're throwing in parts of Fire Emblem for the sake of calling it a Fire Emblem crossover. *shrug*

Fire Emblem If looks great but not sure if I'll buy.

MEANWHILE Xenoblade Chronices X is pretty much an insta-buy. <3 Anyone else planning on getting it?

I'm planning to pick it up, yeah. Even if I never play it, I want to support the developer after watching Chuggaaconroy's Xenobloade Chronicles LP. I bought Xenoblade Chronicles 3D for the same reason.

SMTxFE, while I didn't see much FE, is still exciting to me. And FEIf is an insta-buy for me as well.

[hasdgfas]

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[hasdgfas]

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I believe what you meant to say was WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I'm excited for that as well, but I never actually beat the original XCOM(although i still love it to death), while I did beat Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

[hasdgfas]

Yeah. The Subway was awful. I much preferred New Vegas because everything didn't look the same and it was actually navigable.

I think XCOM just had some difficulty jumps that I wasn't prepared for, which is why i never finished it.

[hasdgfas]

the Tropes vs Women that dropped today is... problematic to say the least

I'm not sure whether you mean "it pointed out some problematic stuff" or something else.

[hasdgfas]

I did think that this was the best video in the series by far in terms of presenting actual arguments, but I do think it's worth mentioning that you're conflating "sexist" with "bad person" when that is not the point I am trying to make. and I strongly disagree with you that the point made is not "gamers and games are overwhelmingly sexist". that was literally the what all of the arguments made pointed to, regardless of what the talking head said.

but that's getting off into the weeds.

and anyway, what I found really contradictory between their data and their arguments with was their claim that female characters are being FORCED into behaving sexually when they show female characters being willing and enthusiastic participants in sexual activity. now, there is a much more nuanced argument to be made that it's a more insidious form of sexism to show women using sex as a tool and a currency (although I think, from a feminist perspective, that women should have every right to monetize and commodify their sexuality) as their main thing to offer a player, but THEY COMPLETELY IGNORED THAT ARGUMENT and just pushed ahead with the argument that female characters in video games have no agency.

There's definitely a fine line. I don't agree with Sarkeesian on all her points(for instance, I think that Bayonetta is a fantastic example of a feminist character who has agency and uses her sexuality as part of her character), but this one has an interesting line between "forced as part of the programming" and "willing and enthusiastic", which I can't really speak to with much authority.

Also I think the main point is "hey, games have a lot of really sexist stuff going on. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy them or anything, just keep an eye on it"

[hasdgfas]

(there's a fucking video of her from a year before TvW saying she doesn't play videogames and doesn't see the point ffs)

[citation needed]

[hasdgfas]

Yeah, I was expecting it to be this video. The one where she says "yeah, I had to learn a lot about video games because I hate games where you shoot off people's heads" and the one where she doesn't say "I've never played a video game and have no interest in video games at all".

Which is the last I'm saying on this subject, because I don't want to argue about it.

[hasdgfas]

Anyway, I'm playing Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It's lots of fun, although I'm really bad at the new Matrix

[hasdgfas]

Has anyone else picked up Super Mario Maker? Bought it this morning, made one level so far: BEB9-0000-0026-5EEB if anyone's interested

[hasdgfas]

in the last jackbox party pack all we played was fucking drawful

is anything else as good as drawful

Nothing is as good as Drawful. The "new" Drawful is still fun, but it's a bit more complicated, and a bit too much for a lazy party game, IMO.

[hasdgfas]

Fibbage > Drawful imo. Though both are great and it's really close.

The problem with Fibbage is that it's actual trivia and you need to be at least somewhat clever instead of sometimes just going completely bonkers the way you do in Drawful.

[hasdgfas]

undertale

I just finished Undertale. It was good for about 90% of it, and then it jumped the shark right at the end.

[hasdgfas]

play it again, cow

I really have no interest right now, the end section of the game completely killed my enjoyment.

[hasdgfas]

"end section"

It is, by most definitions of "the end"(including its own), the end. It basically said "you played this game wrong. I don't care about your time." I have no interest in playing more of a game like that.

[hasdgfas]

This is hilarious sorry.

I don't particularly care if you find it hilarious. I found it incredibly frustrating, and after I enjoyed the game up until

the Asgore fight, the fact that it decided to completely waste my time with the entire Flowie everything and then say "you played the game wrong, go play the whole thing again to get a 'happy ending' because you SURE DON'T GET A REAL ENDING HERE", it really left me with a sour taste in my mouth and made me feel like I was wasting my time.

[hasdgfas]

I mean there's a lot of arguments to be made against this but they're all spoilers so enjoy quitting partway through and complaining about the ending. If that's how you feel at that point then the rest of it probably wouldn't be of much use to you anyway.

Then there are much better ways of doing it than, at the end of the game, telling you to play through the game again. (semantics about 'end' aside)

[hasdgfas]

And someone who's actually trying to have a conversation with me may have just convinced me to play through the game again by doing things other than saying "you really need to play the game again".

[hasdgfas]

You probably convinced them to do that by saying more than you did here.

Sure, they also didn't start by going "end section" and saying "this is hilarious sorry", which doesn't do anything to try to make me want to say more

[hasdgfas]

I mean I was posting to laugh at you so I'm not really getting anything out of this tirade.

I was posting about my issues with it, hoping to have an actual discussion about the game, but apparently laughing at me is more important than actually trying to have a discussion and understand where I'm coming from.

[hasdgfas]

hi i am getting a Wii-U tomorrow w/ Super Mario Maker

are there any other suggestions from people who have one on good games to pick up? I'm gonna go a little crazy

Yoshi's Woolly World is great, as is Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. The Bayonetta Bundle is good, but not a genre for everyone. Super Mario 3D world is really good.

I'm sure there are more, but that's off the top of my head.

[hasdgfas]

I played The Beginner's Guide today. Really went to some fascinating places, although it went very deep and pretty dark. If you're expecting The Stanley Parable 2, with it being from the same developer, don't. It's very different. I need some time to process it.

[hasdgfas]

Only saved my top 10.

Spoiler: here it is

1) Paper Mario TTYD
2) KOTOR
3) Pokemon Gold/Silver
4) Wind Waker
5) Oblivion
6) Fire emblem awakening
7) Civ V
8) Mario Galaxy
8) Dragon Age Origins
10) Chrono Trigger

[hasdgfas]

The latter, clearly.

It's very unique, which I really like. Not really another game like it, and it works very well. It looks epic, it sounds epic, it feels epic. It's an awesome experience.

[hasdgfas]

also yeah playing thru Wind Waker right now for the first time

this game feels unlike anything Zelda has attempted before

it's my favorite Zelda game of all time. I love about 95% of what it does.

[hasdgfas]

You finally find a memory card?

Wii U HD remake

I will say I'm frustrated w/ it because it just straight up doesn't tell you where to go sometimes. It's why LTTP frustrated me, but it feels less frustrating in this game for some reason

but still like...

I beat the Tower of the Gods or whatever and got the Master Sword then was just like.....where the fuck do I go? Then I happened upon the Forsaken Fortress and beat the bird thing and then revealed Zelda and was like.....okay now I can't even get on these islands to get the last temples because I need some item I don't have. And there was nothing ANYWHERE to suggest where to get the items

Have you tried talking to the King of Red Lions? IIRC, he usually is pretty good with advice.

[hasdgfas]

Sticker star is far, far worse than most

games

I've played, let alone Mario RPGs.

I'd also recommend Super Paper Mario much higher than Vi, because I really enjoyed it, but I know that's a losing battle.

[hasdgfas]

idk ive still only beaten KH1 and it's one of my fave games partly because of the plot

The plot may have been the only thing I enjoyed about KH1.

[hasdgfas]

play the witness.

please. do it.

I intend to. I have heard a lot of good things about it and I love puzzle games.

[hasdgfas]

I have played about 2 hours of The Witness so far. It's really good. There are a couple mechanics I thought I had figured out but hadn't, so that's a little frustrating, but overall I'm really enjoying it.

[hasdgfas]

So I found out yesterday that a new Fire Emblem game is coming out in a week. I know the guy who is writing it. What else do I need to know about it? I don't know why the game is split in two parts. Do I want both parts? Is the battle system gonna be similar to Awakening?

Based on what I can tell from previews and the fact that it's Fire Emblem, the battle system should be pretty similar. Maybe a couple small changes, but 90% the same.

As far as the parts, I don't actually know. They haven't done this before. They should be two separate stories, so you shouldn't NEED both parts, but they are two separate Fire Emblem games.

[hasdgfas]

I picked up the Special Edition of Fates and am playing through it(although very slowly). I'm really enjoying it even though I'm only on Chapter 4. Probably going through the Birthright story first. Story seems significantly more interesting than most other Fire Emblems, even based on these few chapters. I also really enjoy the few changes to base gameplay I've seen when compared to Awakening.

[hasdgfas]

I'm really jealous you got the SE.

I was pretty lucky to see right when it went up on Gamestop and was able to jump right on it.

[hasdgfas]

Man, the removal of weapon durability for FE: Fates was a great decision.

[hasdgfas]

I don't know if I like The Beginner's Guide.

It's...weird. I still don't think I have fully processed it, and I finished it months ago.

[hasdgfas]

I'm planning on replaying the good Sonic games sometime soon

Is Generations on that list? That game is very good.

[hasdgfas]

I am thinking about doing some streaming. Nothing big, just me messing around with games I've been meaning to play, but it's related to something I've been trying to do for a while, so it may be fun. If anyone's interested, I am intending to start Thursday Night at about 6:30 Central Time playing...something I haven't decided on yet. This is pending me having to stay late at work, which is a possibility this week. http://www.twitch.tv/hascow if you're interested and I make it on Thursday. I don't have any sort of thing resembling a "setup", so it may be an adventure.

[hasdgfas]

I am thinking about doing some streaming. Nothing big, just me messing around with games I've been meaning to play, but it's related to something I've been trying to do for a while, so it may be fun. If anyone's interested, I am intending to start Thursday Night at about 6:30 Central Time playing...something I haven't decided on yet. This is pending me having to stay late at work, which is a possibility this week. http://www.twitch.tv/hascow if you're interested and I make it on Thursday. I don't have any sort of thing resembling a "setup", so it may be an adventure.

Going live with Rise of the Tomb Raider in about 5 minutes.

[hasdgfas]

Any of you been watching E3?

Only indirectly, mostly through snarky comments on the press conferences.

[hasdgfas]

Doing some streaming today and plan to do a bit most Thursdays moving forward. 6:30 central, twitch.tv/hascow if you are interested. Trying to see how some things work.

[hasdgfas]

Doing some streaming today and plan to do a bit most Thursdays moving forward. 6:30 central, twitch.tv/hascow if you are interested. Trying to see how some things work.

I think I missed your stream today, I'll try and stop by tomorrow.

I did not stream today. Wednesdays are generally busy.

[hasdgfas]

The Swindle is on sale during the Steam Sale. Very fun procedurally generated heist game that I streamed a couple weeks back. I highly recommend it.

[hasdgfas]

Is the Witness good? I notice it's on sale.

I loved it. It did some really interesting things with puzzles. Even though the puzzles are "the same puzzle", there are a bunch of twists on the formula. It's a Jonathan Blow game, so it's absurdly pretentious, but that didn't bother me at all, because the puzzles were so interesting to me.

[hasdgfas]

Playing some SteamWorld Heist on stream today. 6:30 Central. If you're interested, give me a watch and a follow on twitch.tv/hascow. I haven't played this one before, so there will be shenanigans, I'm sure.

Or you can just watch and not follow and miss streams that I don't advertise so I don't take over this thread.

*cough, Chevre, cough*

[hasdgfas]

Let me know what you think of it, I want to like it, but I don't have the money to spend on it if it's no fun.

I've watched videos, videos look interesting, but I'm keen to hear how it feels.

It feels really good. It plays fast, and the aiming mechanic is really interesting, since there's some skill and timing to it, unlike in many turn-based tactics games. There's a bit less tension in something like XCOM, because you do get your units back if they die, you just have to pay some of your currency in order to do so. There's a bit of press your luck in the stages where you don't have to get all the pickups, which is nice to add to the tension. The fact that you can get some random drops from those pickups in addition to just money is nice. Inventory comparisons and loadout setting is a little bit clunky, I'd prefer saving last known loadouts when possible if you don't take someone on a mission.

But overall, it's a really good time, at least I thought it was. The characters are fun and have some nice quirks to their designs and I sort of built them a personality as it went on. If you have any specific questions, let me know. I give it 2 thumbs up and a recommendation.

[hasdgfas]

Finished Walking Dead Season 2 today. That game is tense, brutal, and everything I loved about the first season. Just more of it. Awesome and well worth it.

[hasdgfas]

yeah season 2 was good though i didn't like it as much as season 1 (and it seemed a fair bit shorter too)

but i mean, season 1 is hard to follow up in terms of quality

They were shorter, about an hour and a half per episode compared to season 2's 2 hours.

I think I need a bit of time to fully process it compared to season 1. I really liked season 2 for the most part, but episode 4 was generally quite weak, while I don't remember season 1 slowing up anywhere.

[hasdgfas]

yeah season 2 was good though i didn't like it as much as season 1 (and it seemed a fair bit shorter too)

but i mean, season 1 is hard to follow up in terms of quality

They were shorter, about an hour and a half per episode compared to season 2's 2 hours.

I think I need a bit of time to fully process it compared to season 1. I really liked season 2 for the most part, but episode 4 was generally quite weak, while I don't remember season 1 slowing up anywhere.

I thought Season 1 started really slow, since they were trying to make it more of a Sam and Max style game to start, so there's some point and click puzzles breaking up the action (the Drug Store), for example. It wasn't until episode 2 that I thought they really started hitting their stride by ditching a lot of the adventure game stuff and turning it into a more narrative experience.

that's a fair point. Episode 1 is more point-and-click adventure game style. I guess the fact that it was the start meant that didn't bother me as much, because it never stopped ramping after it started ramping.

i thought i edited my psot but i guess not

one issue i had with season 2 was how non-eventful a lot of the deaths seemed.

there was that one annoying girl you could save or not and her dying was just a thing that happens... and then she dies like 30 minutes later anyways if you saved her as "just another thing"

like why even bother getting attached to the characters in season 2. they're all boned. season 1 had one really dumb death moment but the rest of the deaths carried a lot of weight and there were less characters too so you had more time to get acquainted with them

i mean both games are still good it's just

ehh

The reason I bothered getting attached to the characters in season 2 is that they were all well-written and felt like real people. They were quite easy for me to get attached to. I felt like most of them had very good character arcs and were well-defined. If there is a complaint, it's probably the illusion of choice that runs throughout a lot of the game. But it's difficult for that

not

to be the case in a game like this.

[hasdgfas]

what we really need is sam and max season 4

yes. yes yes yes.

[hasdgfas]

But from what I've heard, NMS is a really watered down version of Spore's space stage.

A lot of people who have bought it have said it wasn't worth $60. Not even close. Maybe like 20.

please dont comment on things you haven't played/watched etc

I'm simply saying what I've heard as a general consensus. (Thus why I said "from what I've heard")

I didn't present it as fact. It was just an anecdote.

I've heard several people say it was exactly what they were hoping for from it and that it was well worth a buy. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[hasdgfas]

Does anyone have any good puzzle game suggestions for PC or Mobile or 3DS? I find myself wanting to play some stuff over the holidays that I can do in more bite-size chunks that doesn't feel like an undertaking when I go to load it up.

[hasdgfas]

I watched some streams of the new Zelda game and it was just so unZeldalike. I felt like I was watching someone play an Oblivion mod.

I dunno, maybe it's gr8 fun but ughhhhhh the feel was so wrong.

It feels exactly like a Zelda game to me. It reminds me so much of Wind Waker, the feeling of exploration, the feeling of seeing something cool on the horizon and going to it, the feeling of finding something cool around the corner.

[hasdgfas]

I haven't played a Zelda game since the first one on the NES, primarily due to growing up in a house with a Playstation. Are any of them worth going back to play and have good ports on the 3DS? Reviews suggest Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are both really good, but also there's some weirdness in the LoZ timeline that could be potentially confusing.

As the others mentioned, timeline doesn't matter, the games are basically all self-contained. I'd definitely play Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on 3DS. I would also download Oracle of Ages/Seasons from the eShop, and possibly Link's Awakening as well.

As far as my Zelda rankings:

Wind Waker
Oracle of Ages/Seasons
Link Between Worlds
Link's Awakening
Ocarina of Time
Skyward Sword
Majora's Mask(probably would be higher, except I hated Snowblind Temple. It'd take me the full timeline just to get to the temple so I couldn't finish it)
Link to the Past
Twilight Princess
Zelda 1
Phantom Hourglass
Minish Cap
Zelda 2
Spirit Tracks

can't rank Breath of the Wild yet, but based on my experience so far, it's probably going to end up somewhere after Wind Waker and somewhere before LttP.

[hasdgfas]

I watched some streams of the new Zelda game and it was just so unZeldalike. I felt like I was watching someone play an Oblivion mod.

I dunno, maybe it's gr8 fun but ughhhhhh the feel was so wrong.

It feels exactly like a Zelda game to me. It reminds me so much of Wind Waker, the feeling of exploration, the feeling of seeing something cool on the horizon and going to it, the feeling of finding something cool around the corner.

I told my friend that this is Wind Waker 2 if sailing was actually fun.

I loved the sailing in Wind Waker. There was just a visceral enjoyment of that aspect for me.

[hasdgfas]

I'm in love with the game but it's easy to argue that its not much of a zelda game. (at least as far as games since lttp and links awakening are concerned)

It's

very

different from all recent Zelda games, so it's not going to be for every fan of the series. I find it to be a breath of fresh air, frankly. It has plenty of issues(weapon durability is a garbage mechanic in all forms), but they're not enough to make me stop playing.

[hasdgfas]

I heard yooka laylee was disappointing? Is it true? If so, damn thats a let down.

I think it's a distinctly average game with an amazing soundtrack. I'd rate it 5.5 or 6 out of 10 right now. And "right now" is getting every single collectible and only having the final boss left to go. It's literally Banjo-Kazooie but it looks nicer. For good and ill.

[hasdgfas]

I played a lot of Yooka-Laylee the past week. Beat the game. I had planned to get every collectible but

wow

is the game beholden to some archaic stuff.

There are some things Banjo Kazooie actually did BETTER!

- In BK, Notes (100 per world) weren't a pain to collect because they were used to guide you along paths to new objectives/etc. In YL, there are 200 Quills in each world and they aren't designed to lead you along a path, they're just randomly placed
- One of your "Pagies" (YL's equivalent of puzzle pieces) in each world is to collect all 200 Quills, and those last couple of them are always hidden in really obscure dumb places
- There's no cohesive rhyme or reason to a lot of the Pagies tasks. I would say about 10/25 are related to the level theme, the rest are head scratchers
- Kartos minecart levels fucking suck. They suck so bad and I ragequit the game several times.
- Camera & controls are janky. Flying is one of the worst experiences.
- I thought I would appreciate the "characters speak in quick grunts and groans" nostalgia. I was very fucking wrong.
- Hub world is a messy maze of bad level design.
- Only 5 unique worlds to experience. You can "expand" each one once to open new areas, but it still feels like a shallow experience with there only being 5 distinct worlds.
- The "transformations" in each world feel lazy. You go through a task to unlock them and then generally only use them to collect 1/25 Pagies, and then they're useless.

I was just very disappointed. There are some good bits there... there's a whole section of one world that is isometric and it's brilliant. The music is amazing. Character design is delightful. There's a good game lurking beneath the surface.

Unfortunately, it winds up feeling like a half-complete, rushed experience. The collectibles can feel overwhelming, and with only 5 worlds to complete, there are a LOT of collectibles in each world, which makes it feel daunting. Half-sized worlds with 10 unique locales would've made for better, less arduous gameplay.

Oh yeah and combat fucking sucks and enemy design is bad and THEY FUCKING RESPAWN so when you sit there for 5 minutes waiting to kill one of the brute mobs and then go the wrong way and have to wander back thru, he's back and there goes more of your time.

Flying completely breaks the game btw. You get a flight ability before the fifth world and at that point you can just bypass 80% of the challenges/content in previous worlds to skip the puzzles/platforming and get Pagies.

Final boss fight is seriously lacking.
Actually, all the boss fights are rather dull.

Ugh this hurts me so much

Good summary. I finished the final boss fight today and have 100%'d the game. It took under 20 hours, so I don't feel like I really wasted my time at all. It was a distinctly average platformer with great music and great character designs and some really cool pieces in here. It just doesn't all come together as well as I had hoped, and man, the controls for some things were completely terrible and/or floaty. 5.5/10

It's literally a less polished Banjo-Kazooie with better graphics and no time put into trying to use some of the innovations in the platformer genre since Banjo.

[hasdgfas]

Ive been playing the witness recently. I'm currently about 8 hours and 278 puzzles deep-- it's a fantastic game and theres still a lot i still have to figure out.
I want to scream about some puzzles i solved already that gave me so much trouble, so super spoilers obv.

Spoiler: Puzzles

most recently, i went through the 4 mazes in the castle grounds, after the floor panels section. The first one with the gates was trivial. The second one with the leaves took me a minute, but the real one that killed me was the third one, with the gravel sounds. I was just running around the maze so i thought it was always crunching!!! But the fourth one, where the maze was different from the panel maze, was also trivial, because that was basically the first thing i tried checking for when i was stuck on the second and third one lol.

Another one that absolutely killed me a while ago was the puzzle in one of the underwater rooms in the pond section (where they first introduce yellow tetrominos i think). And there were 7 shapes and 30 tiles, so it was all but two that you had to leave out. And i had to cut out paper and make a grid with pen, and write down efficient packing alignments for groups of two and three. (That entire pond section took me so much time.)

One that sticks out to me as a pretty cool one was the red/green/blue one in the city where you had to change the lighting to find out the true color of the shapes on the panels. I just sort of sat there for a while having no idea what to do until the lightbulb went on. There are so many other puzzles that gave me that eureka moment but i dont remember any of them right now.

Great game.

My favorite part of The Witness is that it's so good at teaching you how to solve the puzzles, as opposed to teaching you the solutions to the puzzles. It actually means you can go back and still have a challenge with many of the puzzles, because you remember the process, or the "trick", but not necessarily the exact solution.

[hasdgfas]

In order:

Play Witcher 3 if you also got the Expansion Packs. While there's some backstory in the other games, it's not vital to your enjoyment of Witcher 3.

Play Dragon Age: Origins if you have that and haven't played it. Very classic RPG that still holds up very well for me.

Play Witcher 1 for the Witcher universe backstory, and the fact that it's a very good game.

Don't start with Witcher 2(in my opinion, the worst of the Witcher games) or Dragon Age 2(while I liked it a lot, it's really weird, and a smaller-scale game that won't scratch an RPG itch unless you're invested in the DA universe) or Dragon Age: Inquisition(I loved the main story of Inquisition, but they bogged down the game with a lot of really bad side content and I stopped enjoying the game at some point until I could just focus on the main story stuff again)

[hasdgfas]

Also, if you get motion sick, look into some mods for the Witcher to get rid of motion blur. I've heard it can be a real problem for people, particularly in 3.

[hasdgfas]

DA:I was open world done right though.

Once you got past the initial feeling of being overwhelmed it became amazing

I actually somewhat disagree. There was definitely the initial sense of being overwhelmed, and it got better after that. The problem it had was another problem that a bunch of open world games have. At some point, it's just "do a bunch of stuff" and it can occasionally be hard to tell what's important and what isn't. Is this side quest going to lead to interesting lore? Interesting character interactions? Or is it basically just a fetch quest? Do I have to do this? Should I just ignore this and go back to the story?

[hasdgfas]

I've been playing SMO since I got it for Christmas. Really solid game, but I'm baffled by how lazily one of the post-game worlds was done. Almost everything in there is made artificially difficult by reusing stuff in ways they weren't supposed to, which just doesn't belong in a high quality Nintendo game. Special mention goes to the low-gravity boss rush and that one stage where you fight piranha plants without Cappy.

Well, it is post-game content, technically. I definitely appreciate them trying things, even if they may not always have worked.

I assume you're talking about Dark Side, here?

That's also my least favorite world, but I wouldn't call it "lazy" as much as "playing at the edges of the game", which doesn't always work.

[hasdgfas]

I have been obsessed with Slay the Spire for about a week now. A great combination of roguelike and deckbuilder, with a lot of room for variety, and a lot of room to grow.

[hasdgfas]

started playing kotor 2

I still feel like the first one is the best and KOTOR 2 has a darker gritty tone to it and that can appeal to a certain crowd.

It's not necessarily darker and grittier as much as it plays with Star Wars lore a bit more. It's greyer as opposed to necessarily darker. If you're looking for the obvious "good v evil, Jedi v Sith" story, it's not that. But that doesn't make it required to be "darker and grittier".

[hasdgfas]

Vvvvvvv, monaco, the witness, and hollow knight are very bad.

(Rogue legacy is 3 hard 5 me but that's a different issue)

I have had a ton of fun with all those games.