Video Games

Discussions and debates about video games

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Okay, I beat Quest for Glory 2 (VGA remake).

And I really felt like I accomplished something. I mean, trap four elementals, save the world, be adopted by the Sultan as a Prince, and be declared a Paladin (in my case, through dumb luck of deciding I'd make this guy a nice guy) ?

Not to mention the game rewarded you for poking around and doing things. I may actually replay it just to see all the midnight conversations you can have with your hosts.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

The Quest for Glory series are pure awesome in a can.

Unfortunately, the 3rd one is probably the weakest of the series if you don't count 5. The 4th one is probably the best of the unremade ones--the voice acting in 4 is so awesome.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:The Quest for Glory series are pure awesome in a can.

Unfortunately, the 3rd one is probably the weakest of the series if you don't count 5. The 4th one is probably the best of the unremade ones--the voice acting in 4 is so awesome.
I agree. I got the third game from my uncle (who introduced me to the series back in the day) and it's...not that great so far.

But I'm going to play through 2 as a Magic User and Thief before I devote serious attention to the third one.
Last edited by Maxus on Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
User avatar
Orion
Prince
Posts: 3756
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Orion »

I beat QFG 1 long ago, the remake, at a friend's house in California. I was like twelve.

Then for Christmas I got the collection, 1-4. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the stupid maze with the rope and the wizard at the end of QFG 1, even though I had beaten it before. I tried the others and got fairly far into QFG 2, but not being able to transfer my fighter/mage from QFG 1 depressed me.

Then I lent the CD to someone and never got it back. I've looked for it since, but it's really hard to find.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Boolean wrote:I beat QFG 1 long ago, the remake, at a friend's house in California. I was like twelve.

Then for Christmas I got the collection, 1-4. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the stupid maze with the rope and the wizard at the end of QFG 1, even though I had beaten it before. I tried the others and got fairly far into QFG 2, but not being able to transfer my fighter/mage from QFG 1 depressed me.

Then I lent the CD to someone and never got it back. I've looked for it since, but it's really hard to find.
The trick for the maze is to not fall into the trapdoors. Really, the easiest way is go into the door on the left (coming out the little door on the right), go through the door on the bottom-right (coming out in the high door on the left), pull the chain to open the door against the back wall, go back through, go through that door (coming out by the door on the back left). Click the Hand on the door to make it wobble, then walk into the tunnel get safely out of the way. Then go through the door behind the door that just fell.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

If you fall into the trapdoors you can also just click the hand icon on a piece of empty flooring you're on to slide to a stop.

QFG1 Remake is also the better of the two QFGs for stat and gold grinding; that is, if you don't want to use the cheats and just give yourself the filthy stats you crave. Also, if you complete the QFG remake and import it into the QFG2 original (I don't know about the remake) you start with a sword. Killer if you started out as a mage or a thief.

Really, the best advice for min-maxxing in Quest for Glory is this:

QFG1: Start out as a thief with training in the magic skill; you'll grab a sword from porting over, You'll have every skill but one (shield block I believe) and weapons don't make that big of a difference in combat. Much more important is learning how to dodge.
QFG2: You can be a thief or a fighter. I recommend thief because it has a couple of extra sidequests you can go on while the fighter only gets one. There's no point in being a mage since anyone with skill in magic can not only do their sidequest but pick up the spells you're supposed to get.
QFG3: Paladin, most definitely, since they get a bunch of kickass skills that will really help with grinding and spells. There's no point of being a fighter if you have access to a paladin. There is very little point in being a thief in this game since they only get one unique sidequest and there are very few opportunities to use their skills anyway. If you don't want to be a paladin, though, you can also be a mage though you will be forced to use your sucky dagger weapon, will get access to a fairly useless spell, a couple of unique sidequests, and the opportunity for a magic staff.
QFG4: Okay, some things. There's no point in being a mage (yet again) because any class that can cast spells can pick up all of their unique spells. They do get a unique sidequest that's a bit interesting but otherwise unimportant. Once again, there's no point in being a fighter if you can be a paladin.

So that leaves us with thieves and paladins. Now paladins can do the thieves' guild sidequest thing and have an assload of extra things they can see, but thieves have one major advantage; they have access to the Acrobatic Attack skill (hold down and click on the enemy). It's so berserkly strong that it can kill wraiths before you even get appropriate protection, even on faster CPUs.

However, there's two notes I must make about Quest for Glory 4 min-maxxing. One is that items you collect in the previous games do not port over, not even money. (items from the fourth game do port over to the fifth, though) So don't bother hoarding or collecting anything in the third. Secondly, if you start a thief or a fighter FRESH in the fourth game, bump up the 'magic' skill at character creation, and do a playthrough through normally, if you import the character who completed QFG4 back into the same game, you'll suddenly get all of the magical spells you missed from the previous game bumped up to your current magic stat. This is EXTREMELY handy for quick-raising all of your spells to 400 because it's an enormous pain in the ass to raise spell levels in this game.

Mind, what I said isn't necessary but it does save you a bit of time. Then again, I don't remember if the fifth game had individual spell training. On the third hand, a lot of spells are pointless to raise their levels in (like detect magic and juggling lights). Just something to think about.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

I have to say, the QfG2 battle system is a blast. You feel badass when you block, dodge, parry, and then return a kickass hit.

Just, I suck at the timing for dodging. So while my Parry finished up at 150-160, my Dodge *may* have been 100.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Someone needs to do a 'ways to die: Quest for glory 2 remake' video.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Someone needs to do a 'ways to die: Quest for glory 2 remake' video.
Actually...

I think there's a FAQ on Gamefaqs which lists all the ways to die. And marks the funny ones.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

I started playing Bioshock a couple of days ago. HOLY SHIT this game is amazing. I keep jumping at shadows and hearing that damn security alarm in my head.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Surgo wrote:I started playing Bioshock a couple of days ago. HOLY SHIT this game is amazing. I keep jumping at shadows and hearing that damn security alarm in my head.
I've heard Bioshock very highly recommended for that reason. A friend said Bioshock's the first game in a looooong time to make him panic-fire.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Draco_Argentum
Duke
Posts: 2434
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Draco_Argentum »

Time travel RTS Send units into the past, blow stuff up and win. Except your opponent can go further back and do the same as long as the change hasn't propagated. This will cause insanity.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

My 12-year-old sister bought a DS game called Magical Starsign.

Despite the kiddiness, what she's showed is that it's actually got some pretty clever writing. Certainly for the monster entries.

When she's done, I may just make my own file on there...
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
User avatar
TOZ
Duke
Posts: 1159
Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:19 pm

Post by TOZ »

So I rented GH: Metallica this past weekend.

Despite my friends son being a retarded monkey on the drums and causing us to fail 75% of the time, I actually enjoyed it. If you're a Metallica fan, the song list is a serious overload. Could have done without a few of the Garage Inc original tracks, but having the original Turn The Page made up for that. What songs I played felt right, and it didn't have GH3's frustration-level difficulty.

Overall, still just a glorified track pack, but a solid one. Going to pick it up when it drops in price. Maybe it'll be on sale like the Aerosmith version for ten bucks.
RandomCasualty2
Prince
Posts: 3295
Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 4:22 pm

Post by RandomCasualty2 »

Draco_Argentum wrote:Time travel RTS Send units into the past, blow stuff up and win. Except your opponent can go further back and do the same as long as the change hasn't propagated. This will cause insanity.
Wow. That's awesome.
User avatar
Gelare
Knight-Baron
Posts: 594
Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:13 am

Post by Gelare »

Draco_Argentum wrote:Time travel RTS Send units into the past, blow stuff up and win. Except your opponent can go further back and do the same as long as the change hasn't propagated. This will cause insanity.
Didn't Sean Howard (of squidi.net) write about that idea a couple times?
Draco_Argentum
Duke
Posts: 2434
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Draco_Argentum »

Gelare wrote: Didn't Sean Howard (of squidi.net) write about that idea a couple times?
Theres a dude called squidi in the comments section explicitly contradicting that postulation.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Can anyone recommend me a platformer or an action-RPG where you end up using a lot of different equipment or abilities that you have access to at any time and they all do drastically different stuff? I have a preference for games that let you use them all at the same time.

I have a preference for 2D and 16-bit, but I'll take anything that fits the above criteria. Examples of what I'm talking about: Ninja Gaiden for the XBOX (360), Ocarina of Time, and Kingdom Hearts, so-on for the higher-end stuff; for the lower-end stuff, games like La Mulana, Kickmaster, Link to the Past, Milon's Secret Castle (but non-ass)...
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

The only games like that I have in my stack are the Zeldas (Although Majora's Mask really shines if you want to screw around with weird abilities).

Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction should fit the bill. You get a lot of free-roaming and the ability to turn *anything* into a weapon. Oh, and you brutalize giant mechs with trees, street lights, and so on.

But apart from that, I'm stumped.

Edit: Remembered more of the games I've played.

X-Men Legends 2 (and, presumably, X-Men Legends 1) has something like what you want; you put together a 4-man team of mutants and use their powers to get past problems. So you need a good mix of people to have your bases covered. They did at least try to give people semi-interesting things to do (putting out fires, making bridges, breaking walls, and so on).
Last edited by Maxus on Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Can anyone recommend me a platformer or an action-RPG where you end up using a lot of different equipment or abilities that you have access to at any time and they all do drastically different stuff? I have a preference for games that let you use them all at the same time.
I don't know if Bioshock counts as an action RPG or a shooter...probably not the kind of game you're looking for in any case (though it was really damn good).
Draco_Argentum
Duke
Posts: 2434
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Draco_Argentum »

The only recent platformer I've played is Ratchet & Clank. Good variety of guns but might be too easy if you're halfway good at platformers, which I'm not.
User avatar
Crissa
King
Posts: 6720
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Santa Cruz

Post by Crissa »

Bioshock is an FPS. Since we don't have 'shooters' in the US, people tend to call FPSes shooters; but shooters are really things like Asteroids or R-Type; a focus on two-dimensional aiming rather than jumping or mazes or first person.

Action or platformer is like Ratchet and Clank or Super Mario - running and jumping without the focus on aiming and firing.

-Crissa
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

I'm pretty sure stuff like Asteroids and R-Type are called shoot-em-ups (or "shmups") in the United States.
User avatar
Crissa
King
Posts: 6720
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Santa Cruz

Post by Crissa »

They're just not very popular here, even though they originated here. So their name 'shooter' has been stolen by the fps which doesn't have a very pronounceable name.

-Crissa
Koumei
Serious Badass
Posts: 13796
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: South Ausfailia

Post by Koumei »

I pronounce it "faps". But that's mainly because I think the (stereo-)typical fps fan is a complete wanker.
Post Reply