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Author Topic: What games are you playing 2014?  (Read 214041 times)

Fenrir

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2550 on: November 16, 2014, 01:56:28 AM »
I finished Shadowrun Dragonfall, it was the coolest game. And as far as I'm concerned, coolness almost always equals quality.
The Shadowrun setting is the most ridiculous thing (elves hacking into the matrix. Dragons running companies. Drone wielding shaman lesbians) but somehow it works.
Total game time was around 30 hours for me but I play slowly.

I kinda regret playing nice, there were so many opportunities to be a jerk. Sometimes it felt like:
Random guy: Hey I'll give you this important item in exchange for food, that way we both win!
Choices:
- Yes!
- No.
- (Lie) Yes!
- (Charisma: 5) Allright, but I want more.
- *Attack* Sorry, I really want the important item right now.
- (Strength: 5) Maybe you can just give me everything you have right now if you value your life.
- (Quickness: 5) *Shoot him in the face before anyone can react*


I wanted to try this game solo, but the APEX mission sounds impossible that way.
I'll replay it later, maybe with non-hired runners forbidden; that sounds like a fun challenge.

Cid, APEX only has something to say about Eiger.

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2551 on: November 16, 2014, 04:09:30 AM »
Weird. That seemed like such an obvious We Know Allll Your Secrets scene!

~

Wasteland 2: I'm at the last battle and oh my fucking god you did not just do that, game. You DID. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN THE MOTHERFUCKING ASS.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Sigh. I guess I should explain. Full spoilery disclosure: at the last minute the big bad gets his brain overwritten by a computer program, which is not the bad part (that's just schadenfreude). The bad part is that this also happens to any party members with cybernetic implants. There are two of these you can recruit during the game and guess what? I've got them both in my party. One of them is the dedicated reviver. So not only am I gimped on offense and healing, but I've got shotgun blasts and dragonpunches coming at my back from former allies while trying to fight literally like two dozen durable enemy snipers that all start with height and range on me.

I don't know if I'll bother finishing this. If I do I'll probably put it on easy mode just to cruise through the rest of this travesty.

EDIT: Skynet defeated, easy mode prevails. I don't have it in me to do a proper postmortem here, so in sum: mostly decent game with some argh inducing moments, can't imagine myself ever replaying it though.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2014, 05:07:53 AM by El Cideon »

Meeplelard

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2552 on: November 16, 2014, 04:58:25 AM »
Bayonetta 2: Completed! Now for a review.

Bayonetta 2 is a game for the Wii U.  IT is published by Nintendo, despite being an IP made by Sega, and created by Platinum Games.  It is an action game with a female protagonist named "Bayonetta" and a sequel to a game named after this female protagonist.  The protagonist in question has many powers such as summoning demons, turning her hair into giant fists, and shooting guns in flashy way. 

There are graphics in this game.  They make characters look like characters and not the backgrounds, which look like backgrounds.  The enemies look like things that are not the character you play as, because they are enemies.

There are bosses in the game, they have more health than regular enemies.  You fight them sometmies at the end of a chapter, and there are less of them to compensate.  After beating a chapter, you get rewarded.  Do well, you get Platinum, do poorly, you get a Stone award.

There are characters in the game.  There is a demon store owner named Rodin, an italian guy named Enzo, and some man with a grappling hook who claims to be a reporter named Luka; they are all males from the first game.  There is also Jeanne, another witch who wears red instead of black, who is also from the first game.  There is a Masked Lumen, who the game treats as a rival; you fight him sometimes, he is of the "antagonist" classification.  There is a new character named Loki; he is a little boy with cards and a golden pyramid necklace.  He is a good guy who Bayonetta helps throughout.

The plot is Jeanne loses her soul to demons, so Bayonetta goes to hell to get it back.  It tells a story about this, and it ends, the story is over, with the final boss having been defeated. 

There is music; it has some vocals.  Some of the music does not have vocals.  It has a style to it that involves specific instruments playing at the right time.  It plays, except for the silent sequences, where it does not play.  The game also has voice acting; characters talk when they are suppose to, and they have voices by different voice actors to make it clear that Bayonetta is not a man.

If you want to play Bayonetta 2, you should buy it, and a Wii U, because you might find it hard to play Bayonetta 2 otherwise.  You could also borrow or rent it as a service-able option, provided you have a Wii U.  If you do not want to play Bayonetta 2, then do not acquire it or a Wii U if you so do not desire.

The game earns somewhere between 0/10 to 10/10.  If you prefer a letter system, it ranges from A+ to F.


There, that's my review of Bayonetta 2!

Yes, this is just a rip off of the FF13 objective review, but for some reason I wanted to do it.  I can come up with a legitimate SUBJECTIVE review if you really wish.
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Anthony Edward Stark

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2553 on: November 16, 2014, 06:06:30 AM »
Weird. That seemed like such an obvious We Know Allll Your Secrets scene!

~

Wasteland 2: I'm at the last battle and oh my fucking god you did not just do that, game. You DID. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN THE MOTHERFUCKING ASS.

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Sigh. I guess I should explain. Full spoilery disclosure: at the last minute the big bad gets his brain overwritten by a computer program, which is not the bad part (that's just schadenfreude). The bad part is that this also happens to any party members with cybernetic implants. There are two of these you can recruit during the game and guess what? I've got them both in my party. One of them is the dedicated reviver. So not only am I gimped on offense and healing, but I've got shotgun blasts and dragonpunches coming at my back from former allies while trying to fight literally like two dozen durable enemy snipers that all start with height and range on me.

I don't know if I'll bother finishing this. If I do I'll probably put it on easy mode just to cruise through the rest of this travesty.

EDIT: Skynet defeated, easy mode prevails. I don't have it in me to do a proper postmortem here, so in sum: mostly decent game with some argh inducing moments, can't imagine myself ever replaying it though.

To be fair, it's not out of nowhere.  There's hints that the prevalence of bionic implants is anything but accidental really early in the game.  Also you can just reload the autosave at the beginning of the room and dismiss both of them from your group, if you don't want to gun them down like dogs.

(How do you only have one surgeon?  It's 2 SP).

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2554 on: November 16, 2014, 06:25:57 AM »
(How do you only have one surgeon?  It's 2 SP).

I have a backup surgeon at rank 3. She got gunned down pretty quick though, which was where ragequit occurred.

I actually did reload, dismiss both followers at the back of the room, and try again, but they still got converted and still followed me in once the actual fight started. (EDIT: apparently reloading again would've despawned them completely, but that didn't occur to me at the time.)
« Last Edit: November 16, 2014, 06:48:54 AM by El Cideon »

Grefter

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2555 on: November 16, 2014, 01:12:09 PM »
Demons's Souls's - I sunk like all of Sunday into this.  Did 5-1, 4-2 & 3, 3-2 & 3.  Poked into 1-4 to kill the black phantoms.  So much cheese was applied.  5-1 was done pretty legitimate (other than generic Magic cheese).  Reapers in 4-2 first one is pretty easy with obvious things, second one I have the placement to make him suicide on Soul Remains, third one eats Toxic Cloud.  I should have got this sooner.  Then there is a cave full of explosive clouds like in 2.  Okay game.  Okay.

Then I died to Old Hero because I am used cheesing bosses with thief ring, but because he is made to be done with it, he reacts differently!  Oh well.

Storm Beast is kind of meeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh.  The Camera Souls is strong here.  Manta things target fucking stupid all over the place.  Like, normal enemies will target way too close only.  Manta things?  Target random thing behind you outside spell range, ignore things throwing spears at face.  Died a few times.  Ended up just eating grass and face tanking.

3-2 is full of amazing things.  It also has random stupid spikes of Cameras's Souls's that the devs fucking know is there even more so than the usual lolblindcorner! Stuff.  It is "we know you know there is a guy there.  You can even see him.  No you can't target him.  There is a slight curve to the wall/you need to go up the elevator so it can attack you before you lock on.  Man Eaters got first one Sniped through Fog Gate while in Morion Blade/Clever Rat Ring mode.  Second one got poisoned while I hid next to stairs and played Soul Hackers.

3-3. Amazing.  Boss fight is bad against AI, but the monk possessed by The King In Yellow that site on a throne of all of the "thrones" it can find is fantastic.  Strategies on the wiki are pretty disappointing though.  Use Homing Soul Arrow!!!!!!! Doesn't help with the boss you get it from.  That said the AI is easy to bait into walking up to you Soul Ray blasting in the face then rolling out of the way.

Tower of Latria nearly justifies playing this game, but there is so much of the garbage design that is in this game that bleeds over into the zone that it kind of harshes on it.

I sniped the 1-4 dudes.  While I do accept that Royal with magic cheese is probably easy mode start, I think starting Royal and switch hitting over to Archer probably actually results in the better abuse of game exploits.

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2556 on: November 16, 2014, 02:31:49 PM »
That is the proper way to deal with Maneaters, Grefter. That is absolutely correct procedure.

Fudozukushi

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2557 on: November 16, 2014, 05:52:36 PM »
That is the proper way to deal with Maneaters, Grefter. That is absolutely correct procedure.

metroid composite

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2558 on: November 16, 2014, 11:43:31 PM »
Revolution 60.

5ish hour iPhone RPG-esque game.

Plot was actually quite good, and there seem to be several endings I haven't gotten, so I might replay for those.

Combat was...decent enough for 5 hours; not sure if it will hold up on replays.  There isn't exactly a direct analogue, although I'd say it feels similar to a Mario & Luigi game, in that the outcome of a fight is determined mostly by the action elements, and the RPG customization is barely present, but it's not exactly an action game either.

Music is solid.  Voice acting...seemed decent.  I don't know that there were any moments where I thought "wow, this voice acting is so good", but it never really bothered me.

Not a huge fan of the QTEs, but they're consistent enough that they usually felt predictable.

Overall I played pretty much the entirety in one sitting, though (and played the game rather than pay attention to a Starcraft finals) so on a first playthrough my impressions are definitely positive.

Fenrir

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2559 on: November 17, 2014, 04:01:16 AM »
Dark Souls 2: I'm back!!
Going to try the DLC.

I restarted as Yattaf w/ Giant Club. I had to. I just can't resist it. The Giant Club is just too cool.
Pancacking enemies (Two handed R2) is still as effective as before. This time, I got the club before fighting RRV, and I had the pleasant surprise to see that pancacking works perfectly on the mohawk rat..

I tried the super-nice Moon Butterfly skirt for a while. Unintentionally poisoned and killed both Gavlan and Patches before removing it for the rest of the run :(

In 5 hours I went Giant -> CLUB GET -> RRV -> Dragon Dude -> Pikachu -> Siamese Twins -> Pursuer -> Rotten -> Skellies -> Covetous -> Medusa.
Spent a ton of time in the forest reajusting.

Grefter

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2560 on: November 17, 2014, 05:21:53 AM »
Demons's Souls's - Alant got sniped from the fog door.  Doesn't actually take that long though you do kind of have to arc the arrows over the stairs a little.  Achievable with +5 Stick Short Compound Bow and 12 dex.  Had bought a few hundred Light Arrows thinking I would be plinking for a long time.  Not quite as bad as expected.  Killing the Dragon took more patience.  Both done with Clever Rat's Ring and Morion blade (Safe to assume everything was killed with this once I got them both).  4-2 was actually pretty breezy because I was doing it at end game and wasn't chasing any of the loot.  I did get some of the shiny things.  The slugs that cover the Moonlight Greatsword are fucking stupid.  So many of them and they clip into the ground so you can't target them properly.  Died to Dirty Colussus because I didn't know his attacks and went in with super aggressive setup at first (try out this fire storm spell!11!).  Died when I killed it as well, but meh a win is a win.  Garland got fire thrown in his face until he fell over.

Overall, I am glad I played this just for personal reasons, but holy shit this game is no where near as good as Dark Souls.  I would say if you are interested in the series as a whole concept I would just go to Dark Souls and give this a skip.  It is just completely archaic compared to Dark Souls in nearly every way.  It isn't just that it is designed to be harder, the entire system that both games leverage is significantly more clunky in Demons's than it is in Dark.  You can only evade in 4 cardinal directions, there is less kinds of attacks in combat.  The difficulty is more punishing in some pretty shitty ways.  Dark Souls has the rep of if you die it is your fault (which I still think is a bunch of wank, but whatever), you should have paid more attention (or more realistically, now that you know how something works you know how to deal with it next time).  Demons's on the other hand punishes you significantly more for things you can clearly see coming, but you failed on execution. 

For example in 3-2 you can see most of the gargoyles from ages away and hear them from even fucking further.  When one is flying nearby they are amazingly loud and actually use up so many audio channels that other audio starts to not transmit.  SO you know there is a gargoyle there, but you can't target it because of reasons.  Now it is going to attack you as soon as you step off an elevator WHY DIDN'T YOU KILL IT YOU  BAD GET GUD FGT.  Ignore the fact that you are restricted to the game's targeting system.  Even if you block it as soon as it appears you are still entirely at the whims of the camera.  Did you successfully target it?  I hope so because otherwise you have forced focus of the camera in some random direction (this is a control thing that needs to fuck RIGHT the hell off if you are going to restrict target lock range as much as this game does, it should be on a different button completely for this game.  Or you know they could not make the lock-on range pissing distance).  My Camera Souls jokes were 100% serious, that is hands down the most difficult part of the game and is my biggest complaint of the game.  I figure it is pretty apparent, but I will say the obvious anyway, when the camera in your third person action game is shitty it really brings down the quality of your game and it is something that third person action games have been struggling with for a very long time.  It isn't Kingdom Hearts bad or Soul Reaver bad, but frustratingly it feels like something that they could fix way easier than those games could.  Most of the majour issues they have with camera controls are handled well most of the time.  There is still rare cases where camera will clip through things obstructing your view or the camera NOT clipping through things jamming your view up your butt hole, but they are few and far between and when they do happen they don't directly impact your ability to control your character.  It is nearly always a problem with the lock-on.  It is inconsistent and flaky as hell.  Some enemies it will lock on to a million miles away, other enemies it won't lock on to even when they are in plane view because you are more than 3 meters away or because there is a stick between you and them.  Then there is the times where it does actually impact your ability to control your camera.  There is a couple of points of this in Dark Souls as well, but no where near as common.  4-2 is explicitly designed to make players walk off cliffs because the game targeted a Manta thing flying off the side of the cliff instead of the skeletons they are trying to target.  This is abusive and just shitty.  Yes it is From Soft being trolly devs lololol, but this is actually literally the definition of artificial difficulty that people complain about rather than challenging gameplay that people actually like from the series.

That is to say, a lot of things got tidied up in Dark Souls, the chunk of it (up to O&S for reference) hasn't had a ton of these issues, the lock on is mostly consistent in the game except for dark areas of the Catacombs, where even there it was quite reasonable most of the time (still to do Tomb of the Giants though).

My initial assessment of Dark Souls respects my time more really holds true the whole game I think.  Demons's Souls's levels are just too long with no real pacing to them and the game mechanically reinforces slowing down a lot.  Both in the deliberate slow pacing of the combat (Shied is your New God) and in how punitive it is along with slow degenerate tactics that it makes open to you.  Did you take any damage at all?  Grab that Regen ring or a Blessed Weapon and sit around for a bit.  Did you spend mana?  Sit around.    There is actually a ton of healing items and MP restoring items around that you can use, but I hope you wanted to do that tower full of Lovecraft Horror and Mindflayers early on, otherwise you won't know about them.  Everything is super super segmented, so where the game drives you to try and spread out thinly across the levels, it also asks you to make no progress while you do so.  Spending resources adds risk to your run, do you want to waste those Spices to get MP now when you don't know if you will die to random hidden things?  Is this level going to have a one shot mechnanic 2/3 of the way through it that you can't realistically expect to see coming as well?  If you waste them it comes with the penalty of your time spent in the level, the possible penalty of your souls if you can't progress equally far again (and you just had to use an item...) and if you need to replace it, the time spent either getting the souls for or grinding the item directly.  I am all for interesting choices in the game, but the choice of "doing I sit here and wait now or do I go do grinding later which has its own inherent risks" is a pretty fucking shitty binary choice. 

On the topic of interesting choices, boss souls! I have heard a lot of praise for this system especially compared to Dark Souls.  The reality of it is actually super underwhelming.  Yes you do have a few souls that you are presented with a valid choice between two choices of spell or a weapon, but in my estimate, that is only the Arch Demon's souls that do it well, and even of those it is just Dragon God and Old Monk.  Astraea has interesting and very flavourful choices, but none that are actually that compelling (2 multiplayer spells, a super niche sword and a status spell that doesn't work on many things (more things are effected by Poison Cloud which comes from the first boss of her area and it is competing with Cure, which has the same effect as a cheap consumable).  The False King Alant Soul doesn't even have any uses other than the NG+ only weapon wouldn't have minded seeing Soul Sucker put there).  Storm Beast's Soul only has two options, one of which is obtuse to how good it is (because it is intuitive to make a sword you can't use to take advantage of its low HP damage boost on other weapons....) and the other which is kind of questionable niche use and cuts both ways.

The rest of the souls either have only 1 real use per build or only really do one good thing, even with the multiple options.  The only other one that has multiple choices I think is the Armored Spider one (a first boss soul, for reference later).  You get to choose between a bow or two spells of questionable niche use.  The bow is generally considered one of the best items in the game.  A difficult choice.

But at the end of the day that is fine right?  You just make your choice and eat the soul and move on.  But you can't even fucking do that.  The game doesn't TELL you what any of these fucking things do.  It tells you on every soul "this might be used for weapons or spells", but it tells you dick about the weapon you might get and it even tells you this on souls that can't be used for weapons/spells as appropriate.  So do you just eat them?  Well you also don't know how many souls they will give.  For example your choice for the Adjudicator's Souls is a Regeneration spell (which is okay I guess since it fully heals you? But slot intensive and give you the fun of sitting around for a minute and a half to regen that health on and the MP you spend as well), the Meat Cleaver which is also considered one of the best weapons in the game (which you need to know make it from a Club/mace) or 1500 souls.  The choice there when you are informed is incredibly clear.  1500 souls is fucking nothing even at the start of the game.  The Regen spell is niche as fuck.  Without google though?  Your fucked.  You have no way of knowing any of these things.  To identify boss weapons you need to go to the Blacksmith on 2-1 with the base weapon at the appropriate level and SPECIFICALLY at that level.  If you got something nice towards the end of the game I hope you didn't buff that sword up to +9, because now you can't turn it into that boss weapon.  You need to start from scratch either by wrecking this weapon (WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER DO THIS) or by buying a copy of the weapon type and grinding up shards to level it.

Fuck this game.  That just wound me up when I wasn't meaning to go on a rant about it.  The item upgrading in this game is FUCKING TERRIBLE.  And the worst part is, the Meat Cleaver which seriously is STUPID GOOD can be made from an unupgraded club.  Club +0.  That you can buy for 500 souls.  Shit's fucking crazy.

Okay.  I stopped making sense about 20 minutes ago so I am stopping now.  After mentioning the highlights of the game.

- The moment I realised Pure Hardstone is going to be my DJ name when I start making dupstep.
- The Tower of Latria end to end.  The Mindflayer prison, the metal as fuck giant heart suspended at the top of a tower by chains magically held in place by tortured slaves, the centipedes made out of human heads that have their heads pop off when they take enough damage even if they die in one hit, the Old Monk possessed by an interdimensional being inside a piece of yellow cloth sitting on a throne atop of every chair in a kingdom because it is the King of Kings and best of all the sound design in all these places being amazing.    The mindflayer's check in bell tones and the incredibly prolonged wet squelch of the heart and related organic matter any time something happens with them would be the real high points, but the whole zone's audio stands out as well above any of the other zones.

On the note of sound design though, where it is all aces in World 3, everywhere else it is super patchy.   I hated every time I was human because I had to put up with those foot step sounds.  No surface feels right and player's footsteps are mixed up way too high (it is good that enemy steps are loud!  The player's shouldn't be generating the same volume though with directional audio, because you are literally on top of the noise source your player foot steps are incredibly loud and the only footstep you will hear).

Also last thing, New Game + is terrible in this.  The only drive to do it is either trophies or grind for the sake of grind.  No more loot is worth going for, you can't upgrade most of your gear any further.  So you may as well just approach the levels going as directly as possible and that guts a huge portion of the actual "time" investment in the game.  For such a staple of the series it is pretty shitty and boring thing to do really.  Dark Souls 2 seems to get some of it right by mixing things up on the first play through an unlocking stuff normally tucked behind covenants on the third.  It still probably has less progression, but at least it is changing things in more ways than multiplying all stats by 1.5 and calling it a day.

Soul Hackers


Game of the year.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2014, 07:15:24 AM by Grefter »
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2561 on: November 17, 2014, 11:02:51 AM »
Yeah, unfortunately the boss soul thing is only a little less obtuse in Dark Souls (flipside, almost none of them are even worth using). It's still total FAQ-bait. Much as I like Dark Souls 1 better for atmospheric stuff, I can't fail to appreciate how much easier this kind of thing is to deal with in Dark Souls 2. You bring the boss soul alone to one of two people and job done.

Grefter

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2562 on: November 17, 2014, 11:22:01 AM »
The fact that they are generally not worth much (other than like that one spear from Moonlight Butterfly?  Maybe Kellogs Fruity Sword?) makes the obtuseness somewhat manageable.  They are just trophy and achievement bait at that point which I can deal with.

Tales of Xillia - Okay so this is another Tales game that starts off being full of references to old Tales games but does things in a new way with a weird planet ecololgy and then part way through ends up being about space aliens.  I am kind of getting sick of the whole space aliens thing, buuuuut this one gave us trechcoat wearing jetpack dudes attacking on rollerblades shooting shit up with uzis.  So it gets a pass for now.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Niu

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2563 on: November 17, 2014, 06:31:04 PM »
Aliens? I thought the game made it pretty clear that they are on the same planet.

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2564 on: November 17, 2014, 07:12:17 PM »
Mario Kart 8 - DLC came out, so obviously had to give Nintendo more of my money for it. DLC averages to 6 dollars for 8 tracks (I paid 12 dollars for the package, but half of them haven't come out yet). Compared to the game itself, which is 65 dollars for 32 tracks, it's pretty damn cheap.

There are three courses that are themed based on other series. The Excitebike course is pretty odd (mostly just a couple of straight lines, which sounds pretty accurate to the old game) and a homage to something I've never played or seen so I'm not too overall fond of it, the F-Zero course is deliciously evil and really captures the feel of F-Zero by turning on the anti-gravity mode all the time, and Hyrule Castle is a very beautiful Zelda callback and is also very challenging, because most of the courses in this DLC seem to be. There are also three retro courses -- SNES Rainbow Road, which is as horrifying as it was in MK7, Yoshi's Circuit, which does the best job of replicating a GCN course that the game has done (and it is still evil), and Wario's Gold Mine, which I have little opinion on. They added two other new courses in, Ice Ice Outpost and Dragon Driftpost, and they are both solid courses which both are above average for MK8 original courses.

Don't really care about the other stuff from the DLC pack, although we got a pink cat Peach, Tanooki Mario, and Link as new playable characters. But still no Captain Toad OR Captain Falcon!!! It is time to petition Nintendo because I TAKE THIS THIS MARIO KART ROSTER SHIT SERIOUSLY! There are some new themed vehicles too, mostly homages from other games.

Hyrule Warriors - Upgraded my ability to summon chickens :D and got the Level 3 of Lana's other weapons. Deku Spear is sadly not very good thanks to the atrocious limit, but the other two weapons are decent. Now I'm working on getting Zant weapons so I can later get the Great Fairy Level 3 weapon and Zelda's Wind Waker Level 3. I also need to still use Ruto and Agitha, two characters that I can't bring myself to care about.
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Fenrir

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2565 on: November 17, 2014, 07:32:09 PM »
Evade rolls in every direction only appeared in Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls also only had left/right/up/down rolls. It's why the roll is a bit better in Dark Souls 2 even if it actually feels a lot worse.

I'm pretty sure Demon's's Soul's isn't really the game you're supposed to tackle with perfect knowledge of the game, more of a game where you just try to scrape by with whatever you have the luck to find out, that would be why it is ten thousand times easier than Dark Souls 1/2 when you know it well. The games progressively got more streamlined to remove some obscure elements.

I have the Large Club +10, 50 Vit, 42 Str. Ready to go through the DLC. Wooo

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2566 on: November 17, 2014, 08:29:55 PM »
Yeah, I briefly jumped back into DS1 a couple months aback and wow was it hard getting used to not having omnidirectional rolling anymore. (Of course, the downside of that in DS2 is that you have to be a lot more precise with rolling with regard to direction in addition to timing, whereas in DS1 it was just "which one of four directions will get my i-frames to last me safely through this attack?" at the right time.)

Also jesus you're fast Fenrir.

Grefter

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2567 on: November 17, 2014, 08:47:59 PM »
Huh.  I didn't realise it in Dark that it was only 4 direction role.

And Niu I just watched a cutscenes where a thing shot the sky and toe it open and flying ships came I'm through the gap.  So "aliens" at this point.  It is still functionally no different.

Edit - I was looking at restarting Dark Souls when I build new PC and the shift to Steam happens.  After playing around with a Secret Dagger in Demons's I was thinking of going Dex build instead of Str like I had been (though I <3 log Fenrir and it will always be my first love).  Wondering if you guys have any particular recommendation for which Dagger to use?  I figure if it goes to shit it will be easy to transition over to a Curved Sword and will see use out of Bows either way. 

Had been toying with the idea of the Bandit Knife since it seems to be the Secret Dagger analogue, but the Parrying Dagger is right there in New Londo Ruins and could be an easy grab (along with the Estoc for a fallback).  I could level that and use it for most of the game up until AotA and transition to Dark Silver Tracer then.  Then I could try to YOLO parry Gwyn in the face with the parrying dagger off hand (this will not actually happen).
« Last Edit: November 17, 2014, 09:31:22 PM by Grefter »
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Fudozukushi

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2568 on: November 17, 2014, 10:07:22 PM »
They are some definition of alien for sure.

jsh357

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2569 on: November 17, 2014, 10:54:32 PM »
Priscilla's Dagger is fun if you don't mind waiting for it / can actually chop the tail.  Otherwise, I'd probably go with the Bandit's Knife, but honestly I like Daggers more in Demon's and Dark 2.  Curved swords are pretty cool. 

I actually recommend the YOLO parry Gwyn strat.  In my experience, it saves time trying and failing to parry (and getting better at it) instead of slugging it if you aren't good at fighting him.  Usually I use the Stalagmite cheese strategy, though.

Fenrir

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2570 on: November 17, 2014, 11:21:05 PM »
Daggers are pretty bad as a main weapon. I got some use out of them by equipping them on mages (low reqs) and buffing them with Magic Weapon, but beyond that...

El Cid, watch me take more time to go through any DLC than what I did to get there (Beating the four lords in 7 hours. I actually felt slow, picking things up)

I went through the first area of the first DLC (Sunken King, I'm doing them in order)
The fake phantom enemies were totally awesome. 
I got a pretty cool giant club... That poisons the player with each hit. What the hell is this, From??

Magetastica

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2571 on: November 18, 2014, 12:28:38 AM »
Rogue Legacy - Got this and Wasteland 2 to try them out. Seems neat, but very difficult. Haven't played too much, but definitely a game to go back to and play more of.

Wasteland 2 - This has been taking up most of my gaming time spent at home, which admittedly hasn't been terribly much. Tried to make a fairly balanced team, am playing on normal, etc. Never played the first, so taking this kind of slow and doing some small save-scumming but not fretting over losing out on most things.

Got to (what I presume to be) the first set of split missions, and went with the closer one. I have no idea if this was a good idea or not, but oops, too late. Managed to save almost everyone, though accidentally glitched with the boss and shot them by accident while aiming elsewhere, so when I initiated conversation it went straight to "HOW DID YOU KNOW!?" and then fight. First truly difficult fight of the game so far, possibly due to luck, who knows. Having some troubles with where to go next, since this place added 3 extra markers on the map, plus there's still 2 from previous missions. At least I picked up a super useful party member while I was there. Now if only the random encounters didn't go from 10-20HP to 80-125HP, it wouldn't be so bad, since I'm not at the point where I can take more than one of these combats. >_>

Fire Emblem: Awakening - Playing this on Lunatic, and I finally have a Chrom who isn't STR-screwed, like every other game I've ever played with him. Been trying to feed experience to a few other people, though it's mostly been Robin and Chrom getting experience, with tiny bits falling to others through dual-support or small hits before dying to the swarms. So glad I have this on casual. It really allows for a lot of strategies I otherwise wouldn't really have, and sacrificing my healers to give Chrom/Robin more time to heal up has been pretty essential on more than one map. >_>

Mostly running GreatLord!Chrom, Swordmaster!Robin, Tactician!Morgan, Lord!Lucina (though changing her class when I get a second seal), with Myrmidon!Gaius, Nowi, Sorcerer!Tharja, and WarCleric!Lissa as backup, Donnel/Libra/etc as "trying to make use of, but just not good enough yet"

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2572 on: November 18, 2014, 12:55:10 AM »
Sounds like you went to Ag Center, Mage? (This is what I also did, because it was closer.) If so, then yeah Rose is helpful, but *mega spoilers*: she'll turn on you immediately before the last battle if you keep her that long. Definitely worth having around until you get other options for a full party, but don't plan on using her for the long haul.

The prison has good loot, but also enemies that can do huge chunks of damage early on. Probably safer checking out the other split mission objective and poking around whatever other small landmarks you've got flagged first.

I almost entirely skipped randoms.

Magetastica

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2573 on: November 18, 2014, 01:04:17 AM »
Sounds like you went to Ag Center, Mage? (This is what I also did, because it was closer.) If so, then yeah Rose is helpful, but *mega spoilers*: she'll turn on you immediately before the last battle if you keep her that long. Definitely worth having around until you get other options for a full party, but don't plan on using her for the long haul.

The prison has good loot, but also enemies that can do huge chunks of damage early on. Probably safer checking out the other split mission objective and poking around whatever other small landmarks you've got flagged first.

I almost entirely skipped randoms.

Ag Center is, indeed, where I went. I'm not aware of any prison yet, but I'm guessing that's the other place I could have gone to. Really it's that *minor spoilers* there are now 3 infected areas on the map because Sue is a fucking dumbass, and when I went to go to the closest one just south of Ag Center, I found some seriously badass randoms in the middle of a giant radiation patch. I was about to lose one of my rangers trying to backtrack out, so I just closed the game for now. I guess it's okay to avoid randoms, then?

Sierra

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Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #2574 on: November 18, 2014, 03:41:34 AM »
In the long run I think you'll just miss out on some levels and loot. No big, really, plot gives you plenty of both.

Of course, because I skipped most of them (until endgame when my avoidance rate flatlined) I couldn't tell you whether there's any neat unique encounters like the Mad Max thing in Fallout or whatever, but the ones I did see were mostly just random goons.