whatchu playing now

have somehow never played grim fandango even though curse of monkey island was like my favorite game when i was a kid and that's its immediate predecessor of lucasarts games iirc

iirc it was the first game not to use scumm

There wasn't much after that iirc; just Escape From Monkey Island?
But yeah obv. classic. I'll pick it up on the cheap at some point for a long-deserved replay

do you still have the password to super_shotgun35 at yahoo, Adam?

― The Understated Twee Hotel On A Mountain (silby), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 2:05 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hah, no way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYgjV5Exh7E

This is me doing a Let's Play on my map pack. I made it pretty hard! Or at least, I suck now that I am not 14 and playing DOOM every day.

Gravity Ghost - Ok this is sort of cool, a 2D version of the planetoid-hopping Super Mario Galaxy. It sounds better than it works in practice, or maybe it would just work better with touch controls? The level design revolves around you using gravity from planetoids to rocket yourself toward very specifically placed items, and by the end of the levels I tend to find myself floating all over the universe _just barely_ catching the items.

Batman: Arkham Origins - Meh, I really liked Arkham City but this less so. The levels seem more claustrophobic for me for some reason, and they don't wait to introduce more advanced battle mechanics like dodging knifes, they throw them in right at the beginning. I really really miss playable Catwoman. Also the camera is not great, I understand the weird puzzle nature of the environment means the camera needs to snap into spots to help you find the next thing but it feels really cumbersome. The minute I started drowning repeatedly, lost in an underground area, I gave up. Not fun.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - WOW WOW WOW playing this original on PSP and I know I say this w every MGS game but this may be my favorite one yet. Fultoning is so addictive. The tiny levels are so wonderful. Love all the asides about coffee and exotic birds and tree frogs and stuff. The bosses are very interesting as you can tackle them stealthily or you can shoot them repeatedly with machine guns. The Phantom Pain is going to rule so much.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - I'm at 97% now, trying for 100% completion. It's insane you actually have to do these trials, but it's providing replay-ability beyond just S ranking all the side ops. Spotting all the enemies (meaning spotting them and NOT killing them) is not quite so easy with such a big map, so I tend to start evacuating enemies via chopper. So the map gets less and less populated over time. At one point yesterday I was piling enemies into a car and driving them around the bass, which looked hilarious.

It's not out yet, but since I just Platinum'd Full Burst 3 I'm pretty hyped for the new one
http://i.minus.com/ibkbLHLEZ2Nef8.jpg
http://i.minus.com/ibarBNvAvgbxN3.jpg

right now playing for the first time earthbound + super metroid and for the millionth time super mario bros 3

i've been resorting to the walkthrough a bunch for super metroid which i feel guilty about but i like the bouncing around shooting things + platformer elements 100% and the backtracking trying to figure out where to go next almost not at all. i kinda feel guilty about this :/ ethics in gaming amirite

played sniper elite v2 because it was free with gold

it was bad

i plan to try that just for the x-ray testicle bursting action

i kept trying to pull that off then just gave up and youtubed it

it's funny to see a game have all its eggs in one basket (ok two if you count the "realistic" ballistics). the stealth stuff and AI are just awful, no characterization at all, zero atmosphere either. it's a standard-issue ww2 shooter but instead of, like, regular guns, you just have a sniper rifle.

i have been mostly playing darkest dungeon

how do you like it? i was thinking about trying it when it's "done" but it's still in beta right (or whatever the stage of development is where people are invited to play on steam)

i opened 'analogue: a hate story' just to see what it was like and ended up playing through it in one sitting

i did something similar with 'a dark room' which i hadn't heard of before

i started playing neo scavenger but went to the wiki to spoil it instead since i realised that one would be way more of a time sink

I'm playing Rogue Legacy after getting it on PS+. I'm enjoying it so much I'm almost feeling guilty enough to pay for it

xps it's great, and in ~15 hrs i haven't encountered anything that betrays it as beta

xp yeah Rogue Legacy is pretty great

wow, i am really bad at darkest dungeon.

i made it through the first quest, but ever since then i've struggled to make it even halfway through any quest before resigning - as a result never leveling up and increasing stress. stuck in a bad loop where i have to spend all the gold i manage to pick up during the halfquests on reducing stress levels, resulting in a slight negative cash flow.

this is kind of reminding me of real life

what are you having trouble with in particular? it takes a bit of trial and error to learn which are of your guys skills are better and when, which types you want making up your group, what order they should be in, etc. figuring out food and light also important. stress shouldn't be too big a factor early on. i generally don't worry about stress reduction for someone until the bar is over half full. prioritize the first upgrades that reduce the cost and only using the first 2, cheapest methods in each place has worked for me. use your full roster and don't be afraid to just drop someone from it if they get messed up. i guess another thing is to be discerning about what you objects you interact with on missions, some things are just too often bad, corpses and graves, but backpacks and crates are safe. once it starts to click you should find yourself accumulating cash pretty quickly in the early stages.

l read a quick beginners guide earlier and then dived back in and did much better. the two things that helped the most were something you mentioned -

don't be afraid to just drop someone from it if they get messed up

- and also to use torches liberally and keep the light level above 75.

fun game! kind of a steep learning curve right at the beginning but once you get over the hump it's a grand ol time.

Yeah food and torches are cheap enough but important enough that you want to err on the side of taking too much until you have a good feel for how much you need in each area

And if it's a camping mission, plan enough food to feast when you camp

i got a 3DS XL (or whatever it's called) recently but i've barely touched it...UNTIL NOW. I downloaded Bravely Default and i'm having a grand ol' time with it. Anyone else played it? It's kind of a cross between FFIX (homage to old school JRPGs but with updated mechanics/graphics) and FFTactics (job system, support abilities, music). it has so many great little touches, like how you can fast-forward the combat so that when you want to grind a few levels it doesn't take nearly so long. the only awful thing about it, so far, is the voice acting. it is really, REALLY bad.

far cry 2

also playing darkest dungeon on mac (two thumbs up) and pixel heroes on iOS (it's kinda ok. but it could have been a lot better. and it's $7.)

I started Far Cry 2 a little while back, but...the fuckin' malaria, man. Sheesh.

first time i tried it i had trouble w/ taking down guard stations which made everything super tedious. i've since gotten really good at driving into a station w/ a truck and switching up to the mounted weapon so the entire experience has become much more pleasant. also i think malaria just requires an underground courier mission once in a while which, if you get good at traversing the map, becomes much simpler.

xps Bravely Default is in my backlog; stupidly I bought it at launch thinking I would play it (just like a ton of 3DS games last year) but glad to hear it sounds good

Mrgrgr. Bravely Default is so well designed mechanically but the way the story plays out towards the end is very divisive - I was ok with it but ymmv. Really looking forward to BD2 though,
Still playing MH4 but reaching the fatigue point at almost exactly the same stage as MH3.
Why is Bloodborne so expensive in EU, haven't seen a decent price for it yet :/

my main worry with bravely default is that the fun of the combat/job system will wear out and i'll quit halfway through the game. the story so far hasn't really grabbed me (i'm only 6-7 hours in so it's possible it hasn't really started yet), and i'm actively annoyed by all 4 main characters.

I think people who either a) liked Bravely Default, or b) liked the idea of Bravely Default but didn't dig some particular part of it (for me there was something about I just couldn't put my finger on) would really like Etrian Odyssey IV. What a great game. The story gets out of your way and lets you interact with the great turn-based gameplay system. The music is unbelievable. And there is the mapping mechanic which I thought would be annoying when I tried the demo, but ended up being really rewarding when you "complete" your map of a dungeon.

has anyone tried Cities: Skylines yet? just knowing that it lets you define the specific routes for each public transit route makes me O_O excited to check it out.

got it over the weekend but haven't had much time to do anything other than install it and make sure it was running. i suspect i'll end up losing weeks to it if it's half as much fun as it looks.

the lol kotaku review mentioned that the traffic was so buggy that it affected the entire game, but once that's (hopefully) patched i can't wait to dig in.

Just got it and had some limited playing time. It's alot like old sim city as far as I can tell and rly enjoyable

The traffic thing seems like some advanced level issue that I haven't noticed yet

Got Genesis Plus CD emulator working on my Dreamcast and it's pretty glitchy but sooooo much fun. The sound is usually like 2 channels, extremely lofi. Sonic the Hedgehog 1 works pretty perfect but some of this stuff sounds like amazing intense harsh noise. Character select screen on Sailor Moon is some amazing crushed atonal dance music.

Oh wait it wasn't Sailor Moon it was the ranking screen in Alisia Dragoon.

Git yer Streets of Rage 2 on

Tempted by City Skylines too, what's the general comparison to Sim City 5? Is it actually better?

The road laying in Sim City looks a bit glitchy from the LP's I've seen.

Sid Meier's Starships

anyone else?

how is it?

wizard's lizard + vertical drop heroes = both good

Cities Skylines lots of fun but too easy in vanilla I think, particularly if you've played sim city 4. Yes, it's better than Sim City 5, mainly because you can actually create cities, not just high-rise hamlets.

just reinstalled my old copy of simcity4 and played for a bit, man I think I recall even SC2000 being more accessible and fun than this.

About to try 3000 instead now...

how is it?

i'm glad i held off on answering this until i finished a playthrough. at this point it feels like:

civ: civ rev :: civ rev :: starships

being a glass half-empty kind of person i'm probably focusing too much on the problems with it, but i'd still say it's worth checking out for civ rev fans. it's just disappointing because the guts of an amazing game are there, but some things seem unfinished or unpolished or just off.

just from the concept and a familiarity with civ you can get a feel for what it's like - you start with a planet which generates resources (energy to upgrade your ships, metal to build improvements to the planet, science to unlock tech tree upgrades, food to build additional cities on a planet/increase resource generation multiplier). you build a small fleet and then travel to nearby planets to complete missions.

the missions are the fun new exciting part, at least for me. they consist of turn-based combat, often with a generic objective (escort missions, survive for x turns). if you go into it expecting a super-deep tactical turn-based combat, you'll be let down. but it's deep enough to hold your attention. torpedos in particular are fun - you launch them at a certain trajectory and then have the power to manually explode them as they're flying during the second and third turns after launch. the "terrain" of the battlefield is made up of asteroids which can't be traveled through, or shot through effectively by lasers and cannons (torpedos can fly through them, though). anyway, it's not axis & allies or anything but it's engaging and fun.

completing missions gives you resources and other upgrades, and also increases your influence on that planet. increase a planet's influence to 4 and they become part of your empire. at first the map is pretty empty and you're just adding planets to your empire as quickly as possible. soon the map starts to fill up with competing civilizations, and things get antagonistic.

so far, so good. an hour in and i figured this was going to land near the top of my coint & plick 2015 ballot. but then the problems start to become more noticeable.

a big problem, almost gamebreaking one, is the way that war works on a meta-level. unlike the civ games, where you have tons of different units marching around the map, starships only features a single fleet per civilization. in one way this simplifies things in a pleasant way, as you only have to worry about your single fleet moving around from planet to planet. but if also makes taking over another civilization ridiculously easy. all you have to do is invade their home planet. the enemy's fleet will show up there, if they aren't there already. you fight a single (admittedly entertaining) battle pitting your fleet against theirs. if you win, you get all of their territory and planets. if you're one of the first civs to do this, you become ultra powerful because you suddenly have double the resources and territory of anyone else. it's just kind...weird. i guess it accelerates the pace of the game but winning that easily is almost a letdown.

then the other oversights pop up:

- there's no way to pull up a ledger, civ 5 style, that displays how you're doing in comparison to everyone else. the information is being tracked - in the super-simple diplomatic interactions you can get them to divulge all sorts of stuff - it's just not easily accessible.

- tiny thing, but so stupid: in the spaceopedia, certain entries that should be alphabetized (like lists of wonders or types of cities or planet upgrades, of which there are dozens) aren't alphabetized. it's tough to explain why this is annoying but if you ever play it you'll know what i mean. it's just a ridiculous oversight.

- no multiplayer. i'm guessing there are reasons for this (i would go into it but this is way too long already) but it's still disappointing.

- wonders are overpowered to an occasionally gamebreaking degree. i'm all about the wonders and i certainly benefited from them, but some of them are just way too strong and make you nigh-unstoppable.

- there's no leaderboard that shows how many times you've won, as which civilization, which difficulty, etc. you get one simple gameover chart that shows population over time (and even then the axes aren't labeled?!?!?), and then after you go to the main menu it's gone forever. ?? why??

anyway, as usual i complained a bunch but this is actually a really fun game. it's got the "one more turn" thing happening for sure, and after i won my first game i immediately started up a new game on a higher difficulty and a different civ. that's a good sign, i think. it's a $15 ipad game so that's sure to turn off many people, but if it's ever on sale it's worth picking up.

thanks dude. i will pick it up at some point but based on this i am ok with taking my time to get to it.

yeah, i'm also hopeful that they'll release a patch that makes a bunch of obvious improvements. stuff like being able to name the ships in your fleet, for example.

I started Vanquish this weekend. I didn't know what the hell was going on for the first hour or so, but man, what a ride. Like, it literally feels like some crazy, immersive amusement park ride. I'm sad to read that it's such a short game and that I'm apparenly halfway through it already. I hit a similar "I don't know what the hell is going on here" wall pretty early into playing Bayonetta but I think I need to give it another shot now. Or Revengeance, maybe? Batshit and busy as hell but ridiculously fun.

finally played thru grim fandango over the past 2 weekends, was enjoyable though it never really reached the high points of the monkey island games for me

now i'm trying to find other good point+click adventure games that i might have missed out on. i've played all the classic lucasarts ones now and most of the old sierra ones but not a lot of others