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Mass Effect still. Matriarch Benezia was hard until I realized I could move out of her view. I'm on the planet with the monkeys right now. Anyone know how to get the key for the Prothean artifact in corner of the map? It's the one with the floating mercury-ish sphere.
Hang on ... you mean I was right(ish)?
That's funny.
It's the item the Consort gives you after you've talked to her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dattu
New Sonic Colors trailer zooms in, and it still looks rad.
Ah, I didn't get that. Apparently you only get it if you complete a different mission before talking to her. I just finished Mass Effect last night (well, the main story at least). I spent 27 hours on it, but there was a lot I didn't do. I have Mass Effect 2 waiting for me now. I started it up and played the first few missions, but the change of controls keeps confusing me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tempus Vernum
^It's like that at first, but trust me, you'll get used to the new way and come to appreciate the changes they made.
ME1 took 12 hours on the first playthrough; I completely didn't realize that going to Illos would take me all the way to the end. Didn't regret it much because the superiority of the 2nd one made me want to finish as fast as possible. Playing through it again, though, to import a renegade playthrough for my 4th ME2 go-around. Plan on having a change of heart and going all Paragonny while amassing all the allies I can. Just saved the Rachni queen despite my best renegade impulses...
Oh, also, don't think I ever got the chance to properly thank OG for advertising on the verge of spamming for Portal. Really, really enjoyed it and can't wait for the sequel!
Yup, I missed tons of optional missions too. ME1 requires you to walk around everywhere all the time to find every mission. ME2 has less of that, you'll find side missions pretty easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dattu
I remapped all the controls back to the ME1 layout because of that. Of course doing that renders all the help tips useless.Quote:
I have Mass Effect 2 waiting for me now. I started it up and played the first few missions, but the change of controls keeps confusing me.
I've had a fit of nostalgia recently. I've been enjoying X-com and Syndicate. Next I need to track down Master of Magic.
Old-school games have a particular quality: the graphics catered for the gameplay. X-com, for example, almost has an interactive fiction feel to it. The background images for screens on your base management screen, for example - a solitary, moustachioed engineer in his baby-blue uniform assembles a comic-book alien contraption. It takes itself so seriously! :) I love these games.
The new Black Ops looks horribly unbalanced...
My character got up to around 80% paragon. I had felt bad for the rachni despite their history, so I let the queen live. I kind of wish that that had had a bigger impact.Quote:
Originally Posted by NGS
Yes, that wasn't the best idea Dattu; as the would inevitably just grow a huge population all over again and invade everyone. :p
Actually, no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Momo
I did get used to the new way but I think I prefer the model in 1. Except for the inventory management. What a nightmare.Quote:
Originally Posted by evenstar
You'll hear from them briefly in the 2nd game, and it's assumed that letting them live will give you a powerful ally against in the 3rd game when the shit hits the fan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dattu
Not if the queen is able to raise her children peacefully. After the gigantic favor Shepard gave her I think she'd be pretty grateful and not go back on her word. Also I'm not sure even Bioware's storytelling is up for a backstabbing twist like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Momo
Have you tried X-Com Extraterrestrials?Quote:
Originally Posted by Momo
Not as camp as the original, but still a sort of clone.
I can't seem to get into gaming any more. :(
I've been playing some game or other since the 70's for fuck sake and now I just can't get any enjoyment out of games.
It may have something to do with sitting at a computer for most of the day at work, I come home and I just can't be fucked playing games....
There's something wrong with me isn't there? :confused:
I spend a vast majority of my free time reading rather than playing games, this wasn't true a few years ago. And I mostly play the same two or three games that I've played for years and years. Interests wax and wane, I think it's pretty natural.
I'm always happy to read a book, but I do miss the buzz I used to get when I played a new game and enjoyed it.
Now I seem to play anything at all just long enough to think "fuck this" and quit.:mad:
id is expected to announce Doom 4 in a few hours at QuakeCon.
I want to be excited about this. I really, really, do. However id has mentioned several times that Doom 3 has been their most successful title ever in terms of volume sold, so I can't help but worry that they think that Doom 3 is a formula worth tweaking and improving on, instead of completely 1 upping. :downcast:
I released the Queen myself during one of my playthroughs, but it left me with a sense of foreboding. I had no idea what hundreds of years of isolated growth would bring to the Rachni - particularly once they started running out of resources. They breed quickly. Conflict was inevitable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
You did talk to the Queen? Then you should also know the actual reason for the conflict.Quote:
Originally Posted by Momo
Hint: It wasn't population growth. Nor was it ressource starvation.
This game is almost frustrating in that I wish I could experience all possible permutations of event outcomes/squad member losses in order to be able to have good choices for the 3rd game. But I'm driving myself insane; for example, I plan on importing this renegade femShep with 100% completion in ME1 to ME2 where she can be a paragon and renegade in 2 playthroughs. One playthrough will have her continue as a soldier and in the other she will be an infiltrator--even though I already have an infiltrator playthrough, I just don't feel like I did a very good job with it--despite the fact that I haven't tried an engineer or adept yet, mainly because I think they'll be weak and boring in future playthroughs. So as it stands right now, I'm going for a choice of 5 ME2 campaigns to import into the 3rd. Kudos if you read all this...
Vicky 2. Starcraft 2 is also turning out to be lasting longer than I expected.
I'm surprised you took a break from "Vicky 2" to write that article. Is it everything you thought it would be?
Not really; impossibly high expectations and all that. It's still a very good game, it's just not eating away my life as much as I hoped.
Do you really think there will be a game in the future that will eat away your life in significant amounts?
Maybe. I think I lost hope just before the first Victoria came around, and I ended up playing that every day for a year.
I think I've given up. It's just not the same anymore; way back when I was prepared to suffer a quirky UI to get at the story, the characters or the goodies (be it loot or cities filled with the undead), nowadays returning to the good oldies is okay for a bit but not a time-consumer as it was, and new games are routinely crap wrapped in shit.
No game has really gripped me like others used to in a long, long time. I think the problem isn't quality, its a lack of originality. Olden games covered new bases, really pushed the boat out. I used to be hooked on text-only games, Arkenoid - then suddenly we had proper graphics, eventually sound and the possibilities moved exponentially.
Now we've covered it. The games industry went from nothing and has filled the gaps. The originality of previous games is not simply because their creators were geniuses (many were in a way), but because nothing came before it. Roberta Williams nowadays couldn't just simply design a major new type of game because its all been done. And so for us the new ones are fun, but lack the same magic as we've played them before - just in a different incarnation.
The one game that's really gripped me in recent years was Batman:Arkham Asylum. I got hooked into the story from beginning to end and it was the first game I've played through to the end in years (swiftly followed by Dragon Age:Origins as the second game I'd finished that week ;)). For both those games the stories were interesting but once they were over I've not touched either since yet. Good as they were, Batman was far from the first action game and Dragon Age was a good Baldur's Gate-style game but not exactly original either.
Or maybe we're all that much older, that much more jaded, that much more cynical, and things in our lives are no longer viewed with the bright, wide-eyed sparkle that only youth can bring.
I don't know, I think games have changed. I love Super Mario world and Super Mario Kart on the SNES. Super Mario Bros on the Wii is a great game, but it feels off, like its too much at one time. Mario Kart Wii is simply stupid.
Other SNES games haven't aged nearly as well for me, like Rage. While games that have gone back to their roots (Street Fighter 4) have surpassed their aged originals. We get very few original concepts in this age; Portal, Sims, Prometheus, and....?
The problem is that while we have dozens of awesome games, we haven't gotten that one great game. Gaming doesn't have a Michaelangelo, we haven't experienced our Citizen Kane, and as adult gamers, we are getting tired of waiting. Games always want us to be someone else, as kids that was cool, its what we daydreamed about, but as adults, its unfulfilling.
Issue 204 of PC Gamer had a good write up on this subject.
Gaming doesn't have its Michaelangelo? What about Super Mario Bros?
I'm not waiting for a Citizen Kane, we have a load. The problem isn't waiting, its trying to recreate the original magic.
Sonic the Hedgehog
The Sims
SimCity2000
Final Fantasy
Grand Theft Auto
Gran Turismo
Wii Fit
To name a few?
I don't think its just a case of us being older. When I was at middle school it was a case of "Sonic or Mario", followed by "Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat". Nowadays kids interests are as diversified and their attention spans as shortened as ours. I have a brother 16 years younger than me, now 11 - and he's always talking about his favourite game ... but its practically a different one each time I see him. I could play Super Mario 1-3 for years.
Extreme lack of Indie talent in there Rand. While you're listing awesome games, they all lack that extra substance that makes it a masterpiece of art. Its that extra little touch that will finally push gaming into the classification of art, even for those ignorant 3rd parties who don't view it as such. Awesome games allow you to assume the roll of somebody, or something, but that great game won't require the player to assume they have to be someone else, even if games like Fallout 3 have just about perfected that concept. The EA sim games do pretty good with this, but that extra magic isn't there yet (suffer from god complex). Games like World of Goo and Today I die take us in the right direction by removing the concept of a "player" from the game completely.
I really wouldn't use Roberta Williams as a yard-stick for good game design :|
I've been playing a bit of Bit.Trip Beat and Bit.Trip Runner for the Wii the past few days. They're incredibly frustrating because even the smallest mistiming will send you back to the beginning of a level. And when the levels are fifteen minutes of constant action like in Beat, it makes you want to throw your controller down and walk away. But I keep coming back. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSbhg0sDw8
I'm stuck on this one.
I'm working on Jacob's loyalty mission in ME2 right now. All of the other characters are loyal (except for whatever one is on the far left of the selection screen - I haven't unlocked that one yet). Scanning planets is still a pain even with all the ship upgrades. I want to finish the game 100%, so I paused the main story at the point right before salvaging the IFF beacon (or whatever it's called).
And I've come to appreciate the controls. They're much more convenient than in ME1.
Why not? :bored:Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
Have you played anything designed by her? I won't mention her bloated sense of self-worth since technically that's become more apparent only after she stopped making shitty, shitty games.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Total Annihilation Commander Pack for $5.99 from GOG
Not only do you get the original totally fucking awesome game, you also get both expansions, and the soundtrack, all without any DRM.
Plus you're supporting a kickass company and great digital distribution concept.
You won't get the character to the far left on the squad selection screen (assuming you don't have the extra characters from the downloadable content) until you go to collect the IFF, but I would suggest you don't go for the IFF until you have done everything else you want to do...Quote:
Originally Posted by Dattu
I told you you'd get used to the new control scheme! :D