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What game are you playing?
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geggis
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February 10, 2012 - 5:47 am
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Why don't I remember Strange Bedfellows? I'm just looking at the walkthrough on Thief - The Circle and it doesn't ring any bells...

Also, the Hammerites and Mechanists were great factions. I think a large part of Thief's lore's power was those passages before the mission briefings, whether they be from the Keepers, the Pagans or the Hammers, they were fascinating and really quite scary in themselves.

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geggis
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February 10, 2012 - 5:58 am
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Hammerite quotes for the win!

"Vigilance is our shield, that protects us from our squalid past. Knowledge is our weapon, with which we carve a path to an enlightened future."

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Steerpike
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February 10, 2012 - 9:47 am
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The map system was such a huge anchor for Garrett's character. You almost got a sense of the City underworld through them - he had contacts, he could get information, but obviously he wasn't going to get architectural diagrams. So much about that game was so innovative. I remember I'd played and loved the demo, and my brother got the actual game for me for Christmas. Once I got home and started playing, by mid-mission level 2 I had to call him up and thank him all over again. It was already one of the best games I'd ever played.

Great Hammerite quote find! The writing was so spot on.

 

"Comes a man to rescue Me... poor man..."

"Hammers, saws, cuts the skin of Goodsie Wood, and laughs at the Woodsie Lord."

 

*shiver*

 

Trivia: did you know that Stephen Russell, who plays Garrett, also played "Stupid Guard?" Randy Smith told me that years ago. "Bears with claws? I never heard of that."

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

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Synonamess Botch
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February 10, 2012 - 9:48 pm
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I'm with you geggis, I have only the vaguest recollection of Strange Bedfellows.  I know I finished the game so I made it through somehow.  I too mourn LGS's passing.  That studio was a perfect storm of talent and innovation.  I guess we can take consolation in the fact that most of those folks are contributing their talents somewhere.  I guess Ken Levine is the most obvious one right now.  I have to admit that Bioshock didn't do all that much for me.  I'm not that interested in Bioshock Infinite either.

Deadly Shadows attempts to continue that tradition of excerpts from various texts.  It's pretty well done but the writing isn't quite as good.  The story is getting interesting though.  I'm at the Keeper headquarters, about to snoop around where I shouldn't be...

Steerpike what's the Log of Shame?

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Steerpike
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February 11, 2012 - 12:00 am
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Botch, The Log of Shame is a hideous new invention of our own Mat C, designed to humiliate us. You should join in! It's sort of like the Tap-Repeatedly Steam Holiday Sale Contest of Shame from 2010, except it never ends. Lakerz won the TRSHSCOS; it ended sort of in a whimper actually. I've learned not to hold contests because I have to give away prizes when someone other than me wins. 🙂

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

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Pokey
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February 16, 2012 - 3:41 am
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I've been playing Two Worlds 2. It is kind of relaxing fun after Demon's Souls. It is an improvement over the first game, though I enjoyed that one too. My character started  out very weak, but by level 10 I'm feeling I can take on most anything. I'm having fun exploring the beautiful landscape.

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Steerpike
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February 16, 2012 - 9:20 am
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The original Two Worlds is sort of forever tainted in my mind because of the circumstances under which I had to play it, but I do remember recognizing that were I able to play at my leisure, I might have had a good time. Perhaps I'll pick up TW2 on a Steam sale. Pokey, did they get rid of all the "prithee"s and "forsooth"s in the dialogue, or does it still sound like a Middle Ages soap opera?

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

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Pokey
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February 16, 2012 - 3:34 pm
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No prithees and no forsooths this time. My character's comments sound like what you would hear today.

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Toger
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February 20, 2012 - 4:59 pm
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Started up Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - I'm about 11 hours in and have enjoyed myself so far... except for the place that's infested with spiders. Why must there always be spiders? On the plus side, they're colorful and tiny bit cartoonish. On the down side, it's f'n spiders!

The game reminds me of Fable in that there's not an over-arching story like Dragon Age: Origin, but more Diablo with threadbare main quest... which I've forgotten all about in doing a myriad of side quests. Just about every NPC I've come across has some errand or other. I do appreciate how the quest log categorizes the quests into "main" , "side" and "task" with "task" being those quests where you have to kill X number of something.

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Synonamess Botch
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February 21, 2012 - 3:00 pm
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I'm a good ways into Deadly Shadows now and I'm still thoroughly enjoying it.  Honestly it's not quite the towering achievement that the original Thief was, but it's darn close.  I also realized that this game is meant to be played on the hardest difficulty.  Not only does it encourage you to make full use of your toolbox but it heightens the tension of sneaking around to just the right pitch.

Rule #2: Double-tap

AJLange
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February 21, 2012 - 4:34 pm
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I just saw this thread, and realized... I'm not actively playing anything right now! I wrapped up what I needed to do with Mass Effect 2 prior to 3, and snagged the demo, so I'll probably cut in to that, and the Amalur demo this week. From there, I have no idea what to break in to next, but a backlog as long as my arm... 

 

It's like I own almost everything that came out last year but haven't played a lot of it yet, and not sure where to start.

 

I also seem to have come in to possession of an old-style PSP, but have no games for it, so I'm wondering what I can get used to ruin my backlog score.

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Steerpike
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February 21, 2012 - 5:51 pm
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Have you gotten to Shalebridge Cradle yet, Botch? The most terrifying two hours in gaming. Well, that was before Amnesia came out. But still.

AJ, I'm committed to finishing Mass Effect 2 before I move on to 3. So there's that on my docket, plus Dark Souls (nothing left but the tears), and Analogue: A Hate Story (about 50%). I almost have things under control!

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

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Synonamess Botch
Texas, y'all
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February 21, 2012 - 9:00 pm
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Have you gotten to Shalebridge Cradle yet, Botch? The most terrifying two hours in gaming. Well, that was before Amnesia came out. But still.

Not yet but I think it's not far off.  I'm sneaking around the Keeper Compound right now.  I've heard whispered rumors about the horror that is Shalebridge Cradle and I'm looking forward to it.

I hear so much about people wanting to finish Mass Effect 1 & 2 before 3 comes out.  Isn't it interesting how much that series encourages, but doesn't force, full play-throughs of previous installments?  I find myself doing it too.  I two-timed on Liara and feel kinda bad about it...

Bioware has hit on something there, with all the obvious and not-so-obvious tracking of previous decisions. Frankly I'm not the biggest Bioware fan.  I think they make perfectly servicable RPGs but not much more.  I dislike Mass Effect 1 the more I think about it.  That game felt so much like work.  On 360 the inventory system was flat out broken.  I liked the simplification of Mass Effect 2 to a degree, since the RPG elements of 1 bored me, but it became obvious quickly that every mission, no matter how interesting on paper, turned into the same corridor shooter.  Oh and those uncanny valley character designs.  That said I'm cautiously optimistic that they may have hit just the right balance in 3.

Rule #2: Double-tap

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Steerpike
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February 21, 2012 - 11:30 pm
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Perhaps the funniest thing, to me, about the whole finish-ME(x)-before-ME(y)-arrives is that I'm not sure I want to import my previous Shepard's decisions. I played and finished the first Mass Effect on the 360 because it was (briefly) an exclusive; as it happens ME2, which I got on PC because God wants us to play all games on the PC, assumed correctly most of my main decisions. Which made me feel rather... unpleasantly normal.

Now, chugging through ME2 on PC with every intention of importing my results, I'm pre-second-guessing myself.

Is Tali the sexiest female character ever? YES, because of the accent, and because she was my best friend, along with Garrus, in the first ME. I choose to ignore her strong reptilian implications. But should I really go for it? Do I want to import our love? I haven't even gotten the chance to go all sexytimes with Tali and I'm second-guessing. I can "choose" to ignore the reptilian implications, but they're there. Meanwhile Yeoman Kelly promised to feed my fish and didn't so they all died, but I don't want to be human-ist even though she's really hot, and Tali's like my best friend and I don't want to wreck that if she takes off the helmet and she's like a devil lizard; but then I feel bad for judging her on being a devil lizard when our relationship is far more than the physical, plus she's got that accent and you know I'm weak for Eastern European accents even if they're from alien races but what if she's a hideous lizard lady under that purple facemask I don't know if I want to cuddle with a scaled person and then there's the whole Jennifer-Hale-is-a-better-Shepard-so-I-ought-to-play-as-a-female-character thing and IT'S VERY COMPLICATED

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

Scout
Portland, Oregon
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February 22, 2012 - 12:25 am
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I got like 15 minutes into Mass Effect 2 and faded. Bioware less and less appeals to my sick, gutter punk sensibilities. Everything is so hygienic and blue and black and white and romantic. And the great slabs of no texture and the 1974 neon Tron aesthetic.....

Tali is like sister to me. No way.

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geggis
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February 22, 2012 - 5:23 am
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Synonamess Botch said

I'm a good ways into Deadly Shadows now and I'm still thoroughly enjoying it.  Honestly it's not quite the towering achievement that the original Thief was, but it's darn close.  I also realized that this game is meant to be played on the hardest difficulty.  Not only does it encourage you to make full use of your toolbox but it heightens the tension of sneaking around to just the right pitch.

Don't make me get hold of Thief III again Botch 😉 I started it three times but could never stick with it. The whole thing just never sat right with me; the menus, the loading screens between missions (I want mysterious passages of text not gameplay tips!), the glowing footsteps and doors and items, the loading screens mid level, the third person view, the cat doing circles in front of the fireplace on the first mission, oh god the cat... Not even my trusty blackjack could put it to sleep!

And what's with this Amalur game? Where the hell did that come from? It looks like Generic Fantasy 101 to me.

I finally beat the Stanger's Dream on Bastion NG+ with all the gods invoked last night after several evenings worth of failed attempts -- it's very difficult. Each god gives enemies a different perk ranging from brief invincibility to spitting out explosive shards when they die so it's no mean feat to survive Ruck's 'A-Z of Bastion' where each letter represents a new wave of enemies to take on. Dying on Z means you have to do the whole frickin' alphabet again and I did that. A lot. egg2

I've also started playing Stacking from where the demo left off with my girlfriend. It's strange, I really, really enjoyed the demo -- so much so that I bought the game the moment the Playstation Store got back online after the hack -- but I just wasn't feeling the love when I suggested we pick it back up again. Thankfully however, it wasn't long before I fell back in love with it. Now I can't wait for our next play session. Madame Habitant is still gobbling up caviar on the upper deck of the Gilded Steam Ship, which simply won't do...

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Synonamess Botch
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February 22, 2012 - 10:21 am
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Don’t make me get hold of Thief III again Botch 😉 I started it three times but could never stick with it. The whole thing just never sat right with me; the menus, the loading screens between missions (I want mysterious passages of text not gameplay tips!), the glowing footsteps and doors and items, the loading screens mid level, the third person view, the cat doing circles in front of the fireplace on the first mission, oh god the cat… Not even my trusty blackjack could put it to sleep!

I absolutely agree with most of this.  The game is pretty clunky in a lot of ways.  Whoever designed the menu screens should be flogged.  Perhaps it had something to do with PC->console or console->PC porting (I'm playing on Xbox) but it's just bad.  The glowing footsteps only appear in the tutorial but yeah, there's more hand-holding than in the original.  (Tangent:  Having almost completely made a transition from PC to console gaming, I'm getting used to this kind of thing, although I still feel that a part of me has died.  *sob*).  You do get the mysterious passages (some better than others) but they are mixed with tips.  Seriously, every stinking game I play these days has this same "feature".  It's not a bad thing I guess, but every developer must see it as  absolutely brilliant because they're ALL doing it.

Now here's the part I don't agree with: third person.  Third person is my jam!...or something like that.  I for one like being able to see Garrett, mechanical eye and all.  Moving around like a floating eyeball just puts me off a bit.

Even with all those valid criticisms, which I mostly agree with, I still really like this game.  It feels like a warm blanket of stealthy darkness.  So my advice to you is the same as I seem to be getting from Steerpike alot:  DO IT!

Rule #2: Double-tap

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Toger
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February 22, 2012 - 11:02 am
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Steerpike said

Wherein Steerpike waxes rhapsodic about his love for an alien reptile with boobs

You need professional help, Steerpike. Just ask the woman out! The worst that will happen is she'll reject your feeble attempts at romance and it will crush your widdle heart and you'll be reduced to a sobbing mess of a human... but, hey, at least you tried.

Powered by PMS ™

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Steerpike
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February 22, 2012 - 11:39 am
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It's more complicated than that, Toger! Tali is a Quarian, she's ensconced in a protective suit to protect her fragile immune system from all the horrible microbes. While I suspect that's overkill, that she'll be fine if she just uses a little Purell and maybe washes her hands more often, the suit also kind of... obscures her appearance. Now, I don't want to imply that it's all about appearance, I'm not a graphics whore.

But what if she turns out to be, like, a terrifying hybrid of octopus and komodo dragon? What if she has claws instead of nails? What if she's oozy under there? What if she's gelatinous? What if her bones are on the outside? What if she has a trunk? What if, instead of a mouth, she has... like... mandibles? What if she's bristly like a spider?

It would be worse if I run screaming from the room the first time she takes her facemask off. In romances with Turians and Krogan and stuff, you know what you're getting into. The Quarians are a mystery! It's Russian Roulette! 

Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

AJLange
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February 22, 2012 - 12:08 pm
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I love Tali so much. GO FOR IT. Though I play Femmeshep, so I went for Garrus (and broke up with Liara in the process). I wanted Garrus in the first game, to be honest.  I don't care that he's a bird-man; Hatoful Boyfriend clearly proves that a woman and a bird can love.

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