Video Games

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:52 am

New Vegas can fuck right off. I'm not paying 90aud on Steam for what you yanks pay 50us. The dollar is at parity and Bethesda can jam its price gouging up its ass.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:40 am

I really don't understand PhoneLobster's massive hate-on for Steam.

Rathe: You cannot circumvent the patching process, though I must admit I'm not sure why you'd want to. Yes, you can play offline. The only time you even need to be online is to download the game (fairly obviously, and noncontroversially, being logged on is required for that one).

K · Post by K » Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:50 am

Rathe wrote:Hey all,

Quick question regarding Steam. Is it possible to circumvent the online patching process and play it offline, by having decent firewall settings and telling it to frag off when it wants to connect? Or is it evil enough that is HAS to connect at least once before you can ever play the titles?

Just wondering, before spending any money on the stuff.

- Rathe

I don't know about all games, but for FFXI that I got off Steam I just changed the config file so that Steam doesn't get loaded and I found the actual .exe to start the game and used that instead of the link Steam installed.

If you use the desktop link and link in your Programs that Steam installs you need to be logged into Steam to use the game, but I was able to work-around since all the game files were on my computer. FFXI has it's own patching so it's not like I'm missing anything, and newer games will have it too. Older games don't get new patches so it's not an issue.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:10 am

K wrote:I found the actual .exe to start the game and used that instead of the link Steam installed.

That will only work for titles that for some reason did not get the "full" Steam working over.

Some titles distributed over steam are pretty much just distributed and not actually "managed" or "locked" by Steam. Which is the way a non-evil online distribution service should work, you know, assuming Steam wasn't a buggy piece of shit for that role.

But when a title is genuinely locked by Steam the DRM has various shitty hard to circumvent levels that can go as far as encrypting the entire install and only decrypting it through Steam on the fly while you are trying to use your machine to play the damn game at the same time.

For many titles if you want to divorce them from Steam you basically need a pirated cracked version. Which will sometimes actually run BETTER than the Steam version, just for extra laughs.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 8:11 am

Closer to getting a 360.

People keep wanting to loan me games. Maybe it's payback for how my bookshelf practically has a circulation desk.

So, I played some Darksiders.

It's a generic game and I wouldn't find it worth bringing up at all except that I sort of like how mobile War is.

The motions for ascending a ledge or running along one. or the fact that he covers about forty vertical feet with each use of the "speed-climb", really are a nice way for a super-strength character to have enhanced mobility.

I sort of like how fast a thrown object is, too. You hear a lot about War in literature, but they never mention he has a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:10 pm

The decrypting on the fly shit is actually not steam. That's the shit EA and Ubisoft pull. They insist on keeping it even when also using the Steam DRM.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:44 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:New Vegas can fuck right off. I'm not paying 90aud on Steam for what you yanks pay 50us. The dollar is at parity and Bethesda can jam its price gouging up its ass.

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off.
FWIW I do believe that it's the Oz distributor that jacks up the price, so half the games on steam are of reasonable value and half aren't, depending on who sells the boxed copy.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Oct 25, 2010 3:39 am

I am now several hours into Red Dead Redemption.

Um, still have not killed/captured the first gang member. Just saved the ranch horses out of a burning barn.

I will now present my reactions to the game in the order they occurred

1) "Howdy do. Name a' John Marston. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Do you by chance have a cough drop"

Reason: Marston sounds like he's in dire need of a cough drop. He's stereotypically cowboy.

2) "Lookit at this horse. I broke him and trained him mahself. He's a helluva horse, though."

Reason: After a while, I was getting into it. I'd fooled around on it at a friend's house earlier. Now I'm playing it from the beginning and I like it. I was proud of that palamino.

3) "YEW DEMON-SPAWNED HORSE-KILLING FORNICATING SPAWN OF THE ADVERSARY DIE DIE DIE DIE

Reason: I was riding into the town and a cougar killed my awesome horse out from under me. Then I -murdered- that cougar.

And I realized I was way into the game and enjoying myself immensely while also being ticked that my horse had gotten killed.

I also feel the urge to yell in a deep Southern accent when the game bones me (such as when one cougar took out a different horse, I killed the cougar, and then got blindsided and claw-raped by the one coming up behind me.

"YEW WHELP OF A WHORE, AH CURSE YORE NAME!"

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:30 am

So my sister now has her PS3. Which is totally mine when she's at work.

Next on the purchase list is Boobs Bayonetta. But currently I have Disgaea 3. So I'll ask again on the off-chance, though I think Frank might be the only person here to have played it:

Anything I should definitely do early-game to make things easier in the early stage which, if it's anything like other N1 games, is the part that is hardest? Anything I should do early to make the later game a lot faster/less troublesome?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:25 am

Koumei wrote:
Next on the purchase list is Boobs Bayonetta. But currently I have Disgaea 3. So I'll ask again on the off-chance, though I think Frank might be the only person here to have played it:

Anything I should definitely do early-game to make things easier in the early stage which, if it's anything like other N1 games, is the part that is hardest? Anything I should do early to make the later game a lot faster/less troublesome?

I own it, but it has been a while since I beat it. There some new things to do with throw so get used to using it. Also geo pyramids have been replaced with geo cubes and make some of the stage more puzzle like when manipulating them.

Also use combo specials when every you can. Also get ready for moving people around in your homeroom to really maximize bonuses.

Post game you may want to do some item duplication.

All in all it's not really that much harder then Disgaea 1.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:41 am

Oh, usually they're not too hard (with the exception of some post-game content, which is really just a matter of grinding long enough), just the start can often be difficult (that fleeting period where you can actually run out of money, and where grinding from level 1 to level 10 seems really slow, as opposed to the "BAMF! That attack took me from 60 to 90!").

So, combos, play with throwing, geo cubes can add a puzzle element, and shuffle people about in class. Gotcha.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:46 pm

Found out that I owned a collection of old Sega games for the Xbox. I've been playing Phantasy Star 2 lately. Nothing quite like a late 80's JRPG. Back when grinding took a couple of hours rather than a couple of months.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 1:57 am

Already finished chapter 2, and am having a ball. The very fucking moment I was able to create a Saber Kitty I did, because those things are murderous murderers of murder in Makai Kingdom.

I was not disappointed, even if they can't wield katanas any more.

Had a bit of trouble with the chef boss, but having NPCs there certainly helped. Once I realised "You don't win for just killing the egg, and the chef isn't going to kill it and make you lose", I realised I didn't have to chain-throw the cat there to get 1-shotted by the chef.

The "Fight a whole bunch of Mao, at his level" fight was a bit mean, but fantastic for gaining levels. I like that new characters can join the Corner Study club and gain bonus XP, and that non-attackers can join the Robber club to steal Mana (and thus still actually learn new spells). And Alraunes starting with Braveheart? Fuck yes.

Also, I bought Bayonetta. Not actually sure why people talk about the boobs so much: they're not particularly large (as in, let's compare to Tomb Raider, Dead or Alive and so on. Clearly smaller than all of them), they don't get shoved across the screen that much... actually the game seems to enjoy showing her bum more. Which I approve of.

The gameplay flows so wonderfully, it's really easy to just pick up and play. Granted, this is easy mode, with automatic targeting, but still! And she pronounces "dance" properly too <3

Anyway, I wouldn't expect any kind of progress on any projects here for a while if I were you guys.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Oct 28, 2010 3:34 pm

I died on the second stage on Bayonetta. It seems I was timed, but the timer was completely illegible on my CRT TV, and it didn't tell me what I was supposed to accomplish. I decided to not play anymore.

Other than that, the game felt fun.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 10:46 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I died on the second stage on Bayonetta. It seems I was timed, but the timer was completely illegible on my CRT TV, and it didn't tell me what I was supposed to accomplish. I decided to not play anymore.

Ah. So "second stage" here means "second part of the prologue tutorial stage" (chapter 0, verse 2), and your CRT TV is considerably worse than mine (standard def, non-widescreen, incorrectly aligned, about 10 years old, but reasonably big).

You need to perform a specified number of torture attacks within the time limit (press punch+kick together when your magic gauge is full). Keep in mind that you lose magic power every time you get hit, so avoiding enemy attacks is almost as important as actually attacking for this part.

I found it quite easy on normal, though on hard (new game+) it's considerably more difficult than any of the early "real" levels are. I also played the Devil May Cry games, so I probably had a considerable leg up on brand new players.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:41 am

The Eternal Reward from TF2 is awesome beyond words.

It's not very good most of the time, but every so often you stab like 4 people and sapper a sentry before anyone catches on.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:44 am

I just finished Chapter... 4 or 5 or something. The brief trip to Paradiso, the entire city that elected to be full of fire and lava, the giant two-headed dragon boss (suplexing something big enough to swallow you whole? Fuck yes), then that journey to the top of that enormous tower to fight the flying serpent boss. And turning into a panther for the first time.

Very cool.

In Disgaea, I'm abusing the hell out of Class World on newly created characters to get boosts in Mana power. Plotwise, I just rescued Raspberyl. Also, apparently slugs really like glasses. And innate special abilities kick the shit out of old ones. Old Cockatrice: lowers the stats of adjacent foes. New Cockatrice: adjacent foes cannot use special attacks/spells.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:47 am

Anyone else get really shitty headaches from some games? One of my brother's friends just got Fable 3 and I had a go at it- pretty slow to start with and I haven't seen enough different from Fable 2 but after a couple of hours I felt like I was about to throw up.

I've had it with lots of other games but this is pretty frustrating since I'd actually like to play this and the last two didn't give me headaches.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:49 am

It's called simulation sickness. I sometimes get it with dark FPS games when I've had entirely too much candy. There was an article on the escapist forever ago about it, I think it had some tips for dealing with it.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:02 am

Parthenon wrote:Anyone else get really shitty headaches from some games? One of my brother's friends just got Fable 3 and I had a go at it- pretty slow to start with and I haven't seen enough different from Fable 2 but after a couple of hours I felt like I was about to throw up.

I've had it with lots of other games but this is pretty frustrating since I'd actually like to play this and the last two didn't give me headaches.

My fiancee had this problem just watching me play Morrowind. It was her first first-person 3d game experience. She got over it with persistence though, and plays Oblivion all the time now.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 4:17 am

I remember GTA3. I was over at my cousin's place. We went and got the game. PLayed for four days and ended up being sick after that. My psychiatrist uncle mentioned simulation sickness at that time as well. Of course, he also brought up the idea that watching and perpetuating ultra-violence for 4 days can also do that. I never had that problem with any other game though.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 6:12 am

Parthenon wrote:Anyone else get really shitty headaches from some games? One of my brother's friends just got Fable 3 and I had a go at it- pretty slow to start with and I haven't seen enough different from Fable 2 but after a couple of hours I felt like I was about to throw up.

I've had it with lots of other games but this is pretty frustrating since I'd actually like to play this and the last two didn't give me headaches.

My brother has this issue with games with narrow fields of view. It actually makes him extremely nauseous

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 29, 2010 6:45 am

The monster stealing in Disgaea 3 is way more important than it was in previous games in the series. Yes, you still get a 40th level Red Slime with shitty stat assignments, no mana, weird skills, and perplexing equipment. But in Disgaea 3, you need an X-level character of one rank to unlock the next rank. So if you grab a Red and a Blue Slime, you can unlock Blue Slimes and skip directly to those.

You can do the same thing with brawlers and shit. Just grab a first tier warrior from an item world to unlock the second tier. Then grab a second tier warrior from an item world to unlock the third tier. Make your actual characters in 3rd tier.

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Oct 29, 2010 4:08 pm

Manxome wrote:
You need to perform a specified number of torture attacks within the time limit (press punch+kick together when your magic gauge is full). Keep in mind that you lose magic power every time you get hit, so avoiding enemy attacks is almost as important as actually attacking for this part.

I'll keep that in mind if I ever get the money to rent a game again. I am willing to give it a second try. I just had no clue what I was supposed to accomplish in that segment.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Oct 30, 2010 2:14 am

You can abduct humanoids? Haha, that will make it piss-easy to meet requirements for Magiknight and all those. I mean, I already have several of the unlockables (Gunner, Archer, Star Mage, Beastmaster, Iron Knight, Geo Master), but some of them are likely to take a lot of work to get.

Up to the "Everyone is turning delinquent! They're donating blood and attending classes!" episode*. I love the "In the next episode!" teasers.

*To those unfamiliar with the game: yeah, Netherworlds have different standards to us. Though I understand the teachers not wanting students to attend classes: it means they actually have to do their jobs and teach.