Video Games

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 4:47 pm

Afraid not, Firaxis has gone all in on Steam.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 5:07 pm

Korgan0 wrote: railroady extended tutorial

And that's being a touch generous!

Still, I more or less agree. There was stuff in the tutorial I was apprehensive about--I feel like line-of-sight should be made clearer--but those apprehensions pale in comparison to my raging nostalgia boner.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 5:11 pm

I'm ticked about the change from time units to 2-orders, but hey, LMGs. And graphics. And sniper rifles, and kicking out doors, and rumors of cloaking.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Sun Oct 07, 2012 11:20 pm

I agree about line of sight- also, I spent about three minutes trying to figure out what the hell was going and where the aliens were, when in fact it was right next to my sniper. A minimap would be ungodly helpful. Of course, there probably is one and I'm just an idiot.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:28 pm

Well, I'm bumming internet off a neighbor, the phones and internet being down at my place, but on the plus side, I used the down time and figured out an easier way to do the grinding for that "Kill 1000 enemies with your skill" on Borderlands 2, for Zero.

For those who haven't played it, the gunzerker and the commando can just slaughter shit all day long.

The assassin's skill is oriented around doing fuckloads of damage to one enemy. They get a cloaking thing like the Mass Effect Infiltrators.

If you look up pointers online, they'll tell you you have to be level 31 so you can get all the branches on the melee tree so you can just melee enemies and stay cloaked. That's freakin' end-of-game shit.

I figured out another way--grenade the fuck out of them. Use the Mirv grenades, go to wherever you can find Varkids, and throw down your hologram and back up a step. The bugs will encircle the hologram, and you just throw a grenade at the holo's feet. The initial blast will take out the ones around the hologram, the secondary grenades will get any that are running in or backing away. And keep a gun you want to grind up kills on for picking off stragglers. This way, you can take them out five at a time, rather than one or two at a time.

Knocking over all the loot piles keeps the grenades topped up so I didn't have to make too many trips to the ammo machines.

Did it at level 23, too.

And, no, I didn't have anything better to do. I'd already done the better stuff--read and helped out and hung out and such, so I hit a slow patch and had the idea and went to see if it works.

So yeah. There you have it. The benefit of my boredom.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 4:45 am

Well, now I'm in the second half of SoulSilver. Probably shouldn't have "spent" the Masterball on Lugia, but whatever. Worst-case scenario I cheat a bunch of Masterballs into Platinum, get pokemon to hold them and trade them across with my Sister's DS.

And Dragonair has now evolved into Dragonite. So my team is:
1. Dragonite (Draco Meteor, Waterfall, Dragon Pulse, Dragon Dance) - will probably replace meteor with another physical move
2. Kangaskhan (Sucker Punch, Dizzy Punch, Drain Punch, and Outrage. I used to have Substitute and Focus Punch, but meh.)
3. Nidoquen (Earth Power, Poison Jab, Crunch, Ice Beam)
4. Skarmory (Attract, Fly, Spikes, Cut). Yeah, partial wall, partial HM Bitch, not really pulling serious combat duty. Replaced Fearow (Fly, U-Turn, Pluck, Aerial Ace)
5. Ampharos (Discharge, Thunder Wave, Signal Beam, Thunder Punch)
6. Usually Typhlosion (Lava Plume, Smokescreen, Who knows what the other two are?)

Seriously, half my team (and indeed, my main sweepers) are 1st gen, not 2nd gen. And I'm tempted to use Red Gyarados, or evolve a Vaporeon, or use my new Scyther, in place of Typhlosion. Although when I get a Sneasel, THE GLOVES COME OFF AND IT'S SWEEPING TIME.

I seriously wish you could kep the old sprite when evolving a pokemon - Sneasel is so much cuter than Weavile, likewise KOFFING > Weezing, Grimer > Muk, and so many others.

Pokemon is so very forgiven for White.

Also I was discussing Pokeymans with someone last night, and we both agree Mawile is super cute and needs some kind of upgrade. Were she Dark/Steel there'd be so much resistance (and STAB for all of those Dark attacks she learns - as opposed to the two Steel attacks), or getting Meteor Mash, or a better statline, or some kind of decent ability (Jagged Edge perhaps, or a unique "All your Bite/Fang attacks do more damage" thing). I imagine people who really like, say, Beedrill or Arbok, feel the same way about those.

I mean fuck, Ditto and Cloyster got some amazing love in 5Gen (Ditto can get an Ability that lets it autotransform instead of wasting a turn, Cloyster gets Shell Smash, which raises Speed, Attack and Special Attack by 2 stages each, while Defence and Special Defence take a hit - so you suddenly go from wall to sweeper in the space of one move), so more can get that kind of boost.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 5:17 am

So, after calling out the artist who did the AvengersXPokemon mashup pic on creating a kind of shit team... I kind of figured that I should own up and make something I considered better.

I've never played Pokemon competitively, so I'd be interested in seeing what people think of it from that angle:

Fury- Scrafty (Ab. Moxie; It. Scope Lens; Focus Punch, Foul Play, Snarl, Hyper Beam)
Captain EaglelandAmerica- Druddigon (Ab. Sheer Force; It. Armour Fossil; Fling, Draco Meteor, Dragon Rush, Flash Cannon)
Iron Man- Genesect, Shiny (Ab. Download; It. various drives; Technoblast, Fly, Bug Buzz, Flash Cannon)
Hulk- Golurk, Shiny (Ab. Iron Fist; It. Iron Ball; Shadow Punch, Heavy Slam, Focus Punch, Fling)
Thor- Zekrom (Ab. Teravolt; It. Magnet; Rain Dance, Thunder, Fly, Bolt Strike)
Hawkeye- Unfezant, Shiny (Ab. Super Luck; It. Sharp Beak; Sky Attack, Razor Wind, Facade, Taunt)
Black Widow- Accelgor (Ab. Sticky Hold; It. Bright Powder; Swift, Body Slam, Agiltiy, Double Team)

Yes, I realize there are seven there. For an actual in game team, just drop whichever you feel is least necessary, though I suggest Hawkeye, since a Flying/Normal doesn't bring a whole lot to the table.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:08 pm

So, XCOM Enemy Unknown.

Good:
Despite initial fears, it is still a lethal murder machine that devours soldiers
Also, there is no arbitrary bullshit pool of hireable soldiers
Capture missions! And they still involve climbing over a pile of corpses and the wreckage of your dreams!
The bit where alien equipment generally explodes is interesting.
Bad:
I do not like the two-move system.
Laser rifles claim to not need battlefield reloading. That is a lie.
The "three abduction missions, pick one" thing pisses me off so very much.
At least at present, every soldier gets armor, a primary weapon, a sidearm, and one more thing from the list of grenades, medkits, tazers, and woven-composite undershirts. So the guys whose job is to rush into practically melee range with armed aliens and attempt to taze them? They cannot be the toughest guys on the team.
Ugly:
I ran into Chryssalids and ended a turn with them in sight and not dead. How many people did I lose? Zero. Not one single soldier died because the devourer of cities and entire squads has shit for AI.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:24 pm

Koumei wrote:Well, now I'm in the second half of SoulSilver. Probably shouldn't have "spent" the Masterball on Lugia, but whatever. Worst-case scenario I cheat a bunch of Masterballs into Platinum, get pokemon to hold them and trade them across with my Sister's DS..

Yeah, my sister wanted to use her Masterball, I told her give me a couple of hours on her game.

Then I evolved up a Hypno to go with her Weepinbell and bought a ton of ultraballs and showed her my Ancient And Venerable Art of Legendary Catching--save before you try, put it to sleep (Hopefully), then ultraballs untill it wakes up or it's caught (hopefully).

I've been doing that since RBY, and it lets me save up the masterball for the really insane shit like Mewtwo.

I've always either caught shit like that, or I catch them in weird ways. On Ruby, I always caught Regice with a Dive Ball. Don't know what it worked. On the original Silver, I caught Suicune the first time I saw it, with an ultra ball.

Yeah, that ain't gonna happen twice.

One of my favorite parts of Silver/Gold was going back through Kanto and going against the Gym Leaders.

In other news, won't be able to start Dishonored until tonight. DAMMIT.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:10 pm

I remember that I named Lugia "My Bitch" in Soul Silver since it took so damn long to catch.

I'm so mature.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 9:57 pm

Okay, I've hit a bug in X-com: after nailing a trio of Mutons with a rocket, the HUD disappeared and I stopped being able to command my troops.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 3:44 am

Maxus wrote: I've always either caught shit like that, or I catch them in weird ways. On Ruby, I always caught Regice with a Dive Ball. Don't know what it worked. On the original Silver, I caught Suicune the first time I saw it, with an ultra ball.

In 4Gen, the easiest way is to just catch everything at night - spam Dusk Balls. At night (or underground/in a cave), they're the most effective ball that is not called Master Ball*. Paralyse them first of course (Ampharos is my Bug Hunt friendcatching anything friend, just thanks to Thunder Wave). For the really heavy crap, you might get more use out of Heavy Balls** in SS/HG. Not sure.

Can't find my FR or Sapphire (or was it Ruby?) carts to Pal Park over, but I do still have Emerald. Stuck just before the Elite 4, and it appears most of my Pokemon already got Pal Parked into Diamond, unless I seriously got that far with less than one box full of pokes. Still have the Master Ball, so I'm kind of tempted to equip a pokemon with that (if that can be done), delete any HMs because presumably it doesn't let you transfer those, Pal Park my favourites from there (Mawile, Sableye, Linoone (Return + HM Bitch + High Level Pick-Up)) and start again. Instead of "i herd u liek mudkips" I'll rock out with the firebird. AND THEN PAL PARK THEM.

On a related note, Banette is also cute when it follows you around, constantly nipping and poking your feet.

*Or Pal Park Ball etc.
**Stop that giggling, you at the back there.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:23 am

So, I'm now most of the way through XCOM, and have more complete opinions.

I do not like what they have done with the Geoscape. You've only got one real base and everything else is just fighter hangers. That's fine, I pretty much played the original that way too and my efforts at setting up second strike bases ended in hilarious disaster. What is not fine is that you have no goddamn money. Your monthly council budget, if you're doing everything excellently, will stretch to three suits of flying armor, maybe four, not counting the raw materials you scavenge. But you need to spend money on satellites and satellite uplinks and guns and advancing the plot and dead men walking new recruits, too. You'll get another flying-armor worth from abduction missions if you pick the money reward.

Now, you might be tempted to go to the "Grey Market" button and sell all your alien corpses. You would think that because corpse sales were a backbone of the original X-com and you have yet to realize that it's a trap option because you need to turn those corpses into war-fighting materials. Also, sometimes the council will call you up and offer to pay half your rated monthly budget for six corpses, which is roughly ten times the market rate.

Oh, and if you do manage to balance your budget, you'll run into trouble with maintaining your supplies of elerium and alien alloys and weapon fragments and corpses. Basically it's an incredible pain in the ass to get your team loaded up with top-end gear. Especially because occasionally you must spend a shitton of alloys and money to advance a plot step. Where it gets really outlandish is the psychic shielding gear, which you must purchase in Ethereal corpses. I wish that was a joke. For those who aren't familiar with the first game, Ethereals are the most powerful psychics among the alien forces. You must kill one per tinfoil hat mind shield.

I expect a second playthrough, where I know I'll need a literal warehouse full of corpses, would probably be less choked-feeling, but it'd still be much more painful than the original where Heavy Plasmas pretty much grew on money trees.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:44 pm

I've done the first major mission on Dishonored.

So, backdrop: There's a plague happening, and they they know it's spread by rats. You're a bodyguard who gets sold out, gotta go get revenge on the people who framed you, prove them to be villains, figure out something to fix the plague, etc.

One interesting touch is that actually killing people leaves bodies around for rats to chew on, which leads to more rats and more plague and, if the loading screens are to be believed, "a darker final ending".

Anyways, I've done the first major mission. I liked how I found two or three ways to take him out using stuff around, but I settled on the non-lethal option because it's a nasty way to die.

Powers are all pretty useful some way or another. The two I've gotten the most mileage out of is the teleport and the Dark Sight (see in the dark, and see enemies through walls, and their field of vision. THe upgrade lets you see items and goodies).

You also get a heart that serves as your Magic Shit Locator, and tells you secrets about locations and people. These can include "They top off the wine with river water here" and "If he doesn't die tonight, he'll kill twice more before he takes his own life" and even "He knows who you are, but he'll pretend otherwise."

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 9:17 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:I remember that I named Lugia "My Bitch" in Soul Silver since it took so damn long to catch.

I'm so mature.

I named mine "Lubedragon". I have no real idea why.

Koumei wrote:Still have the Master Ball, so I'm kind of tempted to equip a pokemon with that (if that can be done), delete any HMs because presumably it doesn't let you transfer those, Pal Park my favourites from there (Mawile, Sableye, Linoone (Return + HM Bitch + High Level Pick-Up)) and start again.

Actually, yes, you can equip Pokemon with balls *snicker* and send them to another game through Pal Park. And you do have to delete HM moves in order to transfer; it makes sending over HM bitches really annoying.

I got like twenty Master Balls *another snicker* in Pokemon SoulSilver through this method: I used a Game Shark to get infinite MB's in Emerald and FireRed, gave them to various Pokemon, then shipped 'em over to SoulSilver for delicious fun. I caught all the Legendarys in the game this way.

Speaking of Pal Park, I fucking HATE the stupid thingy in Black/White that is used to transfer over Pokemon from earliar DS titles. It's too fucking complicated, and it's so totally not worth the effort. Why didn't they just do a Time Machine thing like they did in Crystal? Would've been so much better.

In other news, still related to video games:
I have been playing a frack-ton of Megaman lately, and I've gotten to really liking all the various Robot Masters. Recently, I've decided I would write a bunch of "Tech Specs/Bios" for all 80+ Robot Masters, specifically in the style of the original G1 Transformers bios. 'Cause I can.

If it goes well, I might even do the Mavericks from Megaman X and the resultant spin-offs...

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 9:46 pm

Shrapnel wrote:
Actually, yes, you can equip Pokemon with balls *snicker* and send them to another game through Pal Park. And you do have to delete HM moves in order to transfer; it makes sending over HM bitches really annoying.

I got like twenty Master Balls *another snicker* in Pokemon SoulSilver through this method: I used a Game Shark to get infinite MB's in Emerald and FireRed, gave them to various Pokemon, then shipped 'em over to SoulSilver for delicious fun. I caught all the Legendarys in the game this way.

I HAVE BALLS YOU LACK BALLS BALLS BALLS AND BALLS!

Speaking of Pal Park, I fucking HATE the stupid thingy in Black/White that is used to transfer over Pokemon from earliar DS titles. It's too fucking complicated, and it's so totally not worth the effort. Why didn't they just do a Time Machine thing like they did in Crystal? Would've been so much better.

They nerfed my favorite tactic that way (teaching Chansey Seismic toss). If I wanted a chansey with seismic toss, I'd have to do enough work that I would rather not play than do it, the sumbitches.

My team lacked legendaries and would stomp other people's legendaries. But that was back in gen 1, I'm assuming it's a different environment now.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:42 pm

Mechwarrior Online is going into open beta next week. If they don't make some serious changes in the next 6 days it may be one of the biggest flops this year.

Besides problems with graphics, stability and performance there is a big problem with how matches are made up. Right now an organized, trained team of 8 players in custom, optimized mechs will likely face an unorganized team 8 newbie players in the unoptimized stock mechs. The veteran players have an extra incentive of having their pre-purchased premium time begin at the open beta, so the organized teams will be on the grind.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:51 pm

Wait, you can import pokemon from old versions into new versions? Can you import the super glitched pokemen you could catch in the first game, like the level 250 charizards and such? Or do they reset somehow?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:57 pm

IIRC you can port Gen 1 Pokemon to Gen 2 games, Gen 3 Pokemon to Gen 4 games and Gen 4 Pokemon to Gen 5 games.

Don't know what you'd get if you brought a Missingno to Gold/Silver/Crystal, but you can do that.

But you can't port it to more recent games.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:36 am

Juton wrote:Mechwarrior Online is going into open beta next week. If they don't make some serious changes in the next 6 days it may be one of the biggest flops this year.

Besides problems with graphics, stability and performance there is a big problem with how matches are made up. Right now an organized, trained team of 8 players in custom, optimized mechs will likely face an unorganized team 8 newbie players in the unoptimized stock mechs. The veteran players have an extra incentive of having their pre-purchased premium time begin at the open beta, so the organized teams will be on the grind.

Seriously? I love both WoT and Battletech, so I was really looking forward to this one.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:41 am

Yeah, you can go from RBGY to GSC. IIRC, you could trade both ways, as long as what you traded to RBGY was a 1Gen pokemon, but it caused errors due to GSC pokemon having additional stats.

2Gen can't be brought forward into 3Gen or whatever.

3Gen can be brought into 4Gen via Pal Park, which is really simple (won't work on DSLite, as that doesn't have the GBA slot). You can do this once you get the National Dex. And yeah, now I have Linoone, a spare Master Ball etc. And will restart Emerald.

Weirdly, my Action Replay won't work with SS, White or Conquest. I think I need the firmware update, which requires the link cable I lost. Though I could catch ~everything in Diamond (works with that) and transfer across, I suppose.

5Gen has its own Pal Park, requiring a second DS (so you basically trade from 4 to 5) and one of the most annoying minigames yet. So after finishing the game you get to bring pokemon you actually like into it.

And let's just get this out of the way:
Some balls are held for charity, and some for fancy dress,
But when they're held for pleasurepokemon they're the balls that I like best.
My balls are always bouncing to the left and to the right,
It's my belief that my bigpoke balls should be held every night.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:08 am

I have no idea what you people are talking about when it comes to balls.

I was finding humor in the concept of small spherical objects holding creatures that can be the side of houses and crack continents in two, not anything testicular. Testicles aren't funny. They're far too easy a subject.

(Seriously, has no one else ever thought that funny?)

Also, whenever Pokeball's are mentioned, I am invariably reminded of the Gratuitous Shit ball, which was just ridiculously stupid.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:32 am

Damnit, Bulbapedia is blocked at work.

Also, the way they're contained is BY TECHNO-MAGIC WIBBLY WOBBLY POWER. That is to say "Clearly there's a magical effect there, they just never even bother trying to explain it, just handwave this shit and move along please".

Seeing as I also can't access gamefaqs here, anyone know how to wake Snorlax up in SS/HG? I know in RGBY you need the Pokeflute, but I'm at a loss, this time round. I've done the Power Plant thing (and have the metcard from helping Copycat Girl out) and defeated Erika, Sabrina, Misty and SUUUUUUUURGE. Oh, and the Poison/Bug Ninja gym leader. I think I may have completed everything that can be done in the region without waking Snorlax up so I can access the other half of the region via Diglet's Cave.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:49 am

The Pokeflute in these games is actually a part of Pokegear: You get a special upgrade to the radio that allows you to play it when you move the radio cursor to the very top of the screen. It only works in the field; you cannot use it to wake up Pokemon in battle like you could in G1.

As for how to obtain it... Since you've down the Power Plant quest, all you need to do is to head to the Radio Tower in Lavender Town, then talk to the dude in brown by the back wall. He'll thank you for restoring power to the station or something and give your Pokegear the upgrade. Once you have it, go to where Snorlax is, open up the radio, and move the dial up towards the top (you should hear the Pokeflute, which is how you'll know you got the station). Once you have the flute playing, interact with Snorlax, and then prepare to rumble.

Once that's done, Diglet's Cave is as good as yours.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 2:08 am

Ah, thanks!

Yeah, I rarely bother with the pokeradio, to tell the truth. Mostly the gear only exists so people can piss me off with phone calls.