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I've finished Assassin's Creed 2. There were some elements I didn't like about the ending (but that's probably consistent with 'middle-movie-itis'). I thought is was a neat trick to keep playing during the credits though. Certainly didn't make me want to quit out of the credits early. I'll have to see what's in the bargain bins for me to pick up next...
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. – The Teachings of Don Juan
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Recently:
Thief: Deadly Shadows.
System Shock 2. The voice talent for Diego's son is the same as Garret in the Thief series?
Call of Pripyat. I get less happy with this series as it goes on.
Rainbow 6 Vegas 2: about 8 times through.
Red Faction: Guerilla 2 times through plus the extra missions.
My Dark Souls single player sensibilities are protected by a +10 GfWL Firewall of Ineptitude
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huzzah, just finished Armored Core 4... a short single-player game, but hard! I just played it on its default difficulty, and played through all of the 'simulations' too. Was hoping to get the schematics for the evil cheating bastard Mech that I had to fight at the end, but no luck.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. – The Teachings of Don Juan
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Did you enjoy it Jarrod?
Finished Brutal Legend the other night. Fantastic for the most part. Solid varied gameplay (hack 'n' slash, light RPG elements, racing, RTS, vehicular escort missions [which I thought were awesome], rhythm sections, exploration), a vivid and luscious open world with weather and day and night cycles, different creatures and factions roaming it attacking each other, fun combat and RTS sections. The world itself is spectacular and littered with lots of really, really, honestly fucking cool landmarks (towering stone guitar monuments thrust out of the earth, Mount Rockmore and its revering stone-rock \m/ hands, piles of dead doll heads, heavy metal flora (typically made from chrome car parts), giant skulls and chains and skeleton graveyards, gothic cathedrals, hulking volcanoes, walls of amps and speakers -- seriously, the world is a joy to explore and behold. In fact, the whole thing is a giddy and passionate love letter to metal and it shows in every aspect of the game. I don't care what you think of Jack Black, but he's just perfect in this, living and breathing his role as Eddie Riggs. The soundtrack and sound design is su-frickin'-perb as well whether you're thrashing around in the Druid Plow hot rod listening to some vintage metal or walking about on foot listening to the gentle ambiance. Voice work across the board is exemplary, even Ozzy sounds great.
I don't understand the criticisms against the graphics though -- the art direction is too good to be bogged down by graphic whore-ism.
Gripes: repetitive as sin side missions, a great RTS system akin to Sacrifice that isn't exploited nearly enough in the single player mode, a finale which felt sloppy and rushed compared to other parts of the game. The RTS battles just aren't big enough or tough enough to appreciate the interplay between the various units so it usually resorts to spamming a load of randomly chosen units at the enemy because the AI is incapable of counterattacking properly -- I had it on the Brutal difficulty and it was still piss easy. I expect the RTS battles to be a blast though in multiplayer. Another issue is that the fantastic story cutscenes that you find and unlock can't be viewed at any time, the same goes for the story in the game proper: if you want to play a section again you've got to restart the game from scratch, there's literally no way to replay anything story related.
That was a quick review brought to you by Gregg B.
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I've got Brutal Legend in my 360 right now, need to get back to it. I'm only a couple hours in and really enjoyed what I saw.
Helmut, you're flying! That's a big pile of completed games there. Sorry to hear that Pripyat didn't do it for you. Both sequels lacked some of the brilliance of the original, partly because I think we now know what to expect from the Zone. But I felt Pripyat really solidified as a whole piece, correcting the traditional problems with the earlier ones, from bugs to weapon degradation.
As for me, I'm deep in the realm of Portals right now. GLaDOS is judging me.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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Steerpike, the notion of environmental estrangement (that notion from your chapter on game design) only seems to work for so long. I agree that the mechanics were finally right: I was able to use an artifact detector to retrieve an artifact, something I was unable to do in the second game.. I thought the quests were just a little rushed with the solution locations often very close to where you got the quest. Gone was the feeling of exploring really risky far flung locations for some bit of jink.
Once I got it to work (it did need a faster processor) Guerilla was a lot of fun. There are some multiplayer modes that really appeal to the inner destructivator in all of us.
Incredibly, the play pile is empty. I have Ghost Recon: Chaos Theory but the included keys (oddly there are two) don't work during installation. Somewhat annoyingly, GTR-Evolution no longer runs, without my having done anything in the three months since it last ran. No Steam logs, no warnings or errors, nada. I haven't tried too hard, but that's concerning.
My Dark Souls single player sensibilities are protected by a +10 GfWL Firewall of Ineptitude
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I know this is the "Games I've Finished" thread, but for one time only I'm making it a "Games I've quit Playing" thread. Maybe that should be a permanent thread.
Half-Life. The original. I played about half the game over a week. I had no problems until I got to the 3-headed dragon thing in the Blast Pit chapter. Went running for a walkthrough. I left the game while riding the rails. I understand why this game is so beloved, but to me it just looks like a 12 year old shooter. I might have fallen in love with it in 1999 - if I liked shooters, of course. Fight for my life/run for my life. No story meat, at least not of the variety I prefer. So I'm pretty sure I'm done with it.
I have all of Half-Life 2, and I may try that at some point, but for now I'm going to move on to something else.
"…you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
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@ Gregg - AC4 was ok, it was like the PS3 version of fast food. Cheap and quick. Didn't really stratch the itch I had for Mech combat. If I were a reviewer, I would say that I like the customisation of the mechs, and I liked the 'simulation' arenas, and I liked that you could get schematics from defeating foes.
Being ever discontent, I was just after more... the fights were not strategic displays of cunning, but were eye-watering reactions of twitch reflexes. Sometimes I'd won a battle, and couldn't tell you why or how I'd won. The battlefields were tiny. The mechs themselves didn't really give off a sense of gargantuan, world-crushingly heavy behemoths, instead feeling like lethal ballet dancers. Actually, I think that's it more than anything else - I felt the mechs should have played more like tanks and less like ferraris - more like a combat sim and less like tomb raider.
I would have liked to have seen some NPC compadres on the field with me, and be able to issue orders. I would have liked to have owned more than one mech at a time, and then could get my NPCs to pilot other mechs of mine. We could have been a metal mountain of walking doom, bearing down on our hapless enemies. I would have liked salvage rights on what was left of the mechs I destroyed. Hell, throw in some RPG-lite for my character and companions, and I think I would have been in digital heaven. I wonder what Bethesda would do with a mech licence...
Don't get me wrong, the game itself was ok, just my expectations were a little off-kelter.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. – The Teachings of Don Juan
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Spike, if you're interested, here's a spoiler.
That's a stealth area. It's been some time, but the first time I played through was an agonizing dash from 1/2 way up one ladder to 1/2 way up another ladder (snake bastard can't get you 1/2 way up the ladder). In another playthrough I simply walked the whole area as quietly as possible and the snake wont detect you. I don't remember the controls but I think I had always run turned on and had to press shift to walk with crouch walk as extra quiet, but that might be another game. If it starts to peck near you I think you can either toss a grenade at the base, or far away to distract it.
Of course, if it ain't working for you, it ain't working.
My Dark Souls single player sensibilities are protected by a +10 GfWL Firewall of Ineptitude
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You're right, Helmut, the "feel" of the Zone really diminishes after the first one. It's still there, but not as effective as it once was. Familiarity. The effect isn't as great.
Spike, the original Half-Life didn't age very well, in my opinion. That is one of a few very annoying puzzles leading up to a conclusion with an especially annoying puzzle. For my money Valve really came into its own with Half-Life 2. I think you'll enjoy that one more.
As for me, I'm baffled by Portal 2's Test Chamber 19. I know what I need to do, I just don't know how to do it. But I will conquer!
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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Helmut said:
Spike, if you're interested, here's a spoiler.
Of course, if it ain't working for you, it ain't working.
Thanks Helmut. I'd already gotten past the 3-headed thing in both directions after many, many tries. When I left the game last weekend I was riding the "train", jumping off wherever I could to see what was to be seen/done. I got to the point where the car entered a round elevator platform. I started going up and was immediately killed by soldiers...again, again, again... My health was very low at this point 14-15, I think, and I didn't have any grenades to lob at the baddies on the floors I passed, so death was certain. At that point I was feeling like crap (cold) and didn't have the desire to figure out a creative solution. That's when I decided that I was probably done with the game.
Oddly, and luckily, I managed to kill the big bad blue thing in the train roundabout. I would run down one tunnel, and then another, only to be killed. On one run I ended up in a room with a switch up on a platform. I hit the switch and waited to be killed yet again, but to my surprise Big Baddie was electrocuted when it came after me. After that I got to riding the rails.
And yet I like the gun turrets/tripods. Guess they remind me of Portal. [Image Can Not Be Found]
"…you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
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I'm itching to play the original Half-Life again just to see how it's aged and how it stacks up against Half-Life 2. I haven't a clue when I'll get round to it though.
Spike, Half-Life 2 is a very different experience to the first and as far as I know Half-Life might be one of those 'you had to be there' kind of games. I don't really think you'll gain much story-wise by completing it so the sequel is pretty friendly to start off with in that regard.
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And don't worry if Half-Life 2 confuses you. It confused us all!
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Half-Life 2 would become perfect if Valve would bloody get on and release Episode 3, but release it as simply Half-Life 2 and have the original game plus all 3 episodes segue into one another. Yes, it would be far too long, but maybe knowing this Valve could trim some unnecessary parts (Ravenholm seems like it would get the vote here, since it's been relegated to "annoyingly unskippable tutorial" in post-release times.)
Okay, so this would officially be called Half-Life 2: Director's Cut. And it would end the series. Something epic would happen. With Borealis. And with portals.
No need for Half-Life 3. Just make the third episodic portion a very bright flame that burns out brightly.
/end wishful thinking
If being wrong's a crime I'm serving forever
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Finished Dragon Age II...
Well, that's not entirely true. I played up until the first part of the final battle when it occurred to me that everything I'd been fighting for had been for naught due, in part, to something an NPC pulls at the last minute. Really Bioware?! It felt like a slap in the face for that to happen after Hawke had spent the better part of 6 years trying to get people to not make sweeping generalities. I watched the ending on YouTube this morning. [Image Can Not Be Found]
Overall, the game wasn't bad, but it didn't have the same punch of DA:O. Also, I got really, really, really tired of seeing the exact same cave/mansion/warehouse. Having me enter said cave/mansion/warehouse via a different door in no way fooled me. Nor did blocking off parts of the area as things were always in the exact same place.
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I was pretty well convinced that I didn't want to play Dragon age 2 and your comments made me even more sure. I didn't play Bioshock 2 either. Sequels haven't seemed to measure up to the original lately or I'm not interested in continuing the story. I'm still looking forward to Witcher 2, but will read the reviews first. Drakensang: River of Time looks interesting too.
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Pssst, Pokey! Portal 2.
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geggis said:
Pssst, Pokey! Portal 2.
Right! I forgot to mention the sequel to Portal, which I loved. I bought it in a sale a couple days ago and looking forward to some thrilling days of gaming. [Image Can Not Be Found]
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Toger, arggghhh I hated how the ending of Dragon Age 2 rolled up in that home stretch. And the epilogue (or lack of) ... god, just ... fail.
I mean, Anders went batshit crazy and I was okay with that, but that I had no part in his actions … I haven't decided yet if that was a poor decision on BioWare's part, or a bold one; he was my most used party member– but not because I liked him, just because he's the only decent healer– so deciding his fate was momentarily a tough call, but in the spirit of role-playing I sent him along his way, disgusted with his actions. I didn't see what killing him would accomplish, because I'm not that type of murderous roleplayer. Chaotic neutral all the way.
So yeah, when he showed up again twenty minutes later I thought I might as well forgive him… but the forgiveness was too complete, and we were suddenly best friends again? I regretted it and wished him dead.
And don't get me started on how annoying the whole "whomever you side with doesn't matter" thing, because either way Orsino and Meredith are lunatics and both try to kill you. The Orsino fight was just mundane. Meredith's wasn't much better. Why can't anyone get final boss battles right? (Note: I think the much maligned "boss battle" (in quotes because it's obviously no battle at all) in HL2 is fitting.)
I really, really, really enjoyed a great deal of Dragon Age 2. Some truly fun characters in Varric (sometimes) and Isabela, and I also felt a great connection with the cold, disliked Aveline. Not the best writing for her, but I'm not asking for poetry in my RPGs. Carver is tied for the worst customary first male character in a BioWare game with Jacob. I haven't played enough of my second go-round to decide on Bethany yet, but she's already far less bitchy than Carver. Fenris really bored me, and he was an enourmously bigoted asshole.
I adored Merrill and hence pursued a relationship with her. As usual, the BioWare Patented Romance Machine fucked up huge. At the beginning I thought I'd have a bright and lovely relationship with Merrill; when I was able to ask her to move in I thought 'splendid, we can have tea!' But… it was like she was just over visiting or something. All her shit still in the alienage… she just stood overlooking the banister. And we had, like, two conversations about our relationship. Why do BioWare suck so fucking much at making two digital people convincingly fall in love! Or even fall in like. It's just like 6 progressively idiotic conversations with no nuance: "I like the way you handle yourself in battle. I like the smell of your hair. Let's have sex. Well, that was a good shagg, s'long. Oh hello, I reckon we're 'together' now then? No time to hug or talk, better save the world then end the game!"
Well, that's enough from me.
If being wrong's a crime I'm serving forever
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Oh xtal, I feel your pain.
I didn't have a problem with Anders blowing up the Chantry - it was stupid on his part and I, too, sent him away as I just couldn't stand to look at him at that point in time. He made me so incredibly angry and my Hawke loved him. I'd used him as my principle (or is it principal, I can never get those straight) healer after Bethany. I liked Bethany as she had a funny sense of humor tempered by an absolute fear of being dragged off by the Templars. Every time we talked to one she'd want to just quietly slip away unnoticed. (I can't tell if you took Carver into the Deep Roads or not, so I won't spoil that if you didn't as it would hold true for Bethany as well)
Anders' coming back made sense in a way and it went along with whay Merrill said when I asked for opinions on what to do with Anders - Anders should help since it was largely his fault. I forgave him and promised that if we survived we'd go off together and work towards his cause. Which, for my Hawke, made sense as she'd spent her entire life and all that time in Kirkwall protecting her apostate mage sister. I got it.
Merrill was such a naive, sweet, idiot. I adored her but she was too wrapped up in the whole "made a deal with a demon" thing that just annoyed me. Straight-up magic was just fine with me, but not the bloody, demony crap. That just crossed the line. What I couldn't fathom is why there wasn't any closure with Merrill after wiping out her entire clan! There was nothing! Not even an "I don't want to talk about it" from her. It was as if it never happened at all! I was truly sad having to kill that entire clan and then... :crickets:
Fenris - what a self-absorbed, racist bastard. Watching the ending on Youtube, I realized I could have convinced him to fight with me, but I didn't want him. My best friends were mages and he cut me no slack. Ever. To hell with him!
Varric always made me laugh. I should have romanced him but he's height-challenged. Yes, I'm a snob. [Image Can Not Be Found]
Aveline was Hawke's BFF. When she said "let's crack heads like we used to" at the end, I was in tears.
What really pissed me off was Orsino resorting to blood magic after having a hissy at Meredith that not all mages were blood mages. That's what really made me stop playing. I was "WTF?!!" Orsino's reasoning made no sense at all. It was on par with someone thinking you're a thief & murderer so, I guess I'll go out and steal some stuff while going on a killing spree since that's what you think. [Image Can Not Be Found]
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I think I'll wait a few weeks and fire up DA:O and replay it. I need me some Alistair, Morrigan and Oghren to cure my pain. [Image Can Not Be Found]
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