Video Games

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 2:27 pm

I just got an email from blizzard telling me that WoW is 75% off this week. Assuming it's legitimate, must... resist...

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:15 pm

Why wouldn't it be legit? It's black shopping week. Thanks, FDR.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:10 pm

It's an email with direct links and I've never gotten this kind of email from blizzard before. I'll check the blizzard website manually.

EDIT: Yup, legitimate.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:34 am

I got up at 4:30 to hit up Wal-Mart for a sale on TVs. I got a 32-inch HD for $350--and the big deal was the ones for less than $200. Those went -very- fast. I have the Xbox 360, and now I have an HD TV to actually get some benefit out of it...Also, it has a port to hook a computer tower up to. I'm actually kicked back in a chair as I type this, looking at my TV. This will be handy for watching movies.

It was surprisingly civilized, too. People were standing in a crowd in the back (where the electronics section is) waiting for 5 o'clock to hit so they could start. Chatting, talking, waiting. A few minutes before 5, there was a bit of roar as the employees said "Eh, close enough. C'mon, everybody," but...no stampedes, no fist-fights. no tramplings.

So, I can confirm that HD makes a difference on some games. I was playing Prototype yesterday and couldn't tell if a number was a 10 or an 11. Today, I can definitely tell you it's a 10. That had been grating on my nerves.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:56 am

I found I had to upgrade my TV to read basically any text when I still had my 360. Having a modern TV for that gen of consoles is a must, I'd say.

EDIT: Also, I bought FF 7: Dirge of Cerberus and Red Faction 2 today for fairly cheap. Yay?

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:26 pm

I picked up the big Dragon Age Origins collection from Impulse for $25. Pretty cool.

But now a friend just gave me the Warhammer 40k game I was missing, tp add to the pack he gave me with the rest of the games last year. So now I'm basically obligated to play those as soon as I get back to my computer.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Nov 28, 2010 12:01 am

As mentioned before, I've been playing Prototype. My notes on the game thus far:

Radical Entertainment, the studio which made Prototype, made a game before Prototype. It's called Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. This game is the reason the Abomination was the villain in the latest Hulk film. The movie also gave it a nod, where Hulk ripped a car in half and beat the Abomination with it? Yeah, that's a move in the game.

There's even shared graphical details and animations.

I will say I feel more involved in the setting in Prototype. The previous-gen consoles could do crowds, sort of, but the ones in Prototype feel a lot fuller. There's also a capacity for stealth, whereas the Hulk had exactly one stealth mission--you have to grab a truck, crunch it down over you, and Flintstone-walk it in a convoy.

On the other side, Hulk handled random destruction a lot better. Sure, Mercer in Prototype is strong, but he can't pick up a bus. Or grab a tank by the barrel, kick it onto its side, spin to build up momentum and then hammer-throw it at a target.

But, yeah. I cannot express how much of this game is lifted directly from Incredible Hulk--even the controls.

Hulk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UInGcse ... 68&index=7

Prototype:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUKDaAVmIDE

--------------------------------

Moar HD TV notes:

Red Dead Redemption has a -lot- of detail on it I just never caught. The loading screen revolver can be clearly seen to be a revolver. Before, I knew it was a revolver, but...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Nov 30, 2010 4:09 am

Ye gods, where was this?

If anyone's been cursing the collectibles in Assassin's Creed, here's a link for you.

http://www.thehiddenblade.com/collectibles-0

The maps have pop-up images when you hover the mouse and a generally detailed description for Assassin's Creed 2, and some videos for Assassin's Creed 1.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Dec 01, 2010 6:10 pm

The multiplayer in Assassins Creed Brotherhood is one of the more refreshing things I've played in a long time. Trying to find your human target in a pile of identical bots while dodging your own would-be killers by attempting to blend in with your own identical bots is much better times than I expected.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:00 pm

So I got a copy of FEAR used on CD just now and I have a problem. The boxes for the codes only hold 3 digits if letters are involved, but hold 4 with numbers only. Problem is one needs 4 digits per box for it to work. I've looked online and seen like, two topic posts about it. I don't wanna have to crack this game, but what do?

EDIT: I have this guy's problem. http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-bu ... 01644.html

Bihlbo · Post by **Bihlbo** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:56 pm

I just stumbled across this thread and I'm kind of excited to mine it for good game recommendations. These are the games I've been into for the last 6 months or so.

Civ V is pretty exciting. They really dropped the ball on the interface though, making the game harder to quickly control than it was in Civ IV (mods fix this though). I don't know why there's a push toward mouse-centric controls in some games, but it's annoying. The new changes to the way the game functions are a bit of a mixed bag, causing me at times to miss IV and the Colonization version of the game (which was just about as fun as vanilla).

The Sims 3 is probably the most addictive game I've played this year. Mind you, it's also one of the worst. Apparently trying to power game the thing breaks it. There are many ways to get the game to crash, one of which is playing it, and not only is there no auto save, but it takes about 2 minutes on a fast machine to accomplish a save. But it's impossibly fun when nothing goes wrong.

Sid Meier's Railroads is a few years old, but I used to be a big fan of Railroad Tycoon and this is much better graphically, and almost as good gameplay-wise.

Hellgate: London used to be an MMOFPS, but now it's just a single-player FPS. It's basically my brainless watch things explode game.

EQ2 Extended is the free version of EQ2. It's a fantastic MMO and I've been dinking around with the free version about once a week. Mainly to remember how much fun it was to play when I was playing it regularly and had friends in the game.

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Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 12:41 am

I look forward to playing Civ V, I bought it the day it went on sale, but my graphics card can't handle it with anything resembling a reasonable speed, so I don't play it much.

Severian · Post by **Severian** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 12:46 am

The word on Epic Mickey is that it sucks. Which is a shame, because I've loved most of Warren Spector's previous games

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 12:56 am

name_here wrote:It's an email with direct links and I've never gotten this kind of email from blizzard before. I'll check the blizzard website manually.

EDIT: Yup, legitimate.

So what's the deal with this? A friend told me last night that WoW is on sale for $10 and the first two expansions $5 ea, but when I look at their site, they're normal price. What do I need to get these prices?

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:26 am

Been playing way too much Fallout New Vegas, and really enjoying it. However, the Hardcore mode doesn't really make enough difference. Like, at all.

Even without abusing the card game I have about 20 Radaways, about 10 Doctors kits, a metric fuckton of food and about 30 waters. It's piss easy to fast travel back to Goodsprings or Novac and get a doctor to remove radiation sickness for 100 caps (a mere pittance) or fully heal you and fix all limbs for 50 caps. I think I've used a Radaway once in 20 hours. Even the healing taking place over time isn't really a factor since you can eat 5 or 6 foods at once and get like 60hp regen per second for a while.

I'd prefer it if you had multiple difficulty tracks, so you could have different difficulty levels and different "realism" levels. So you have Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible, as well as Wacky, Normal, Realistic and Hardcore, where the current Hardcore is Realistic. That way instead of having to spend a trait on Wacky Wasteland you can have it as a game option, and you can have an post-apocalyptic challenge.

Hardcore would require something like 4 hours of sleep per game day rather than 1 hour every other day, you'd find a lot less food and drink, require more of it and it would be a lot, lot harder to get rid of radiation. So it would be basically normal to have sleep deprivation or dehydration, by the end of the game you're almost definitely going to be irradiated, and you wouldn't be able to fast travel with broken legs.

Makes me want to get the PC version and make a mod where you start off with a companion, maybe Sunny Smiles, and if they die you can easily requisition a generic companion from any faction (NCR, Legion or Brotherhood, or even a nameless person from Goodsprings or Novac) based on your reputation, and have much harder Hardcore mode, aided by an expendable, easy to replace companion.

Apart from the irritation with the Hardcore mode not really being Hardcore, the bugs are really pissing me off. The game freezing on me isn't all that bad; I just need to make sure I save regularly, especially when exploring the wasteland. And the random people appearing being hostile isn't too bad.

But what is really frustrating at the moment is that I lost one of my companions who returned to their starting place. However, something got fucked up and their AI is set to hostile so it attacks everything. Now I can't get them back, meaning I no longer have access to an awesome perk.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:26 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
name_here wrote:It's an email with direct links and I've never gotten this kind of email from blizzard before. I'll check the blizzard website manually.

EDIT: Yup, legitimate.
So what's the deal with this? A friend told me last night that WoW is on sale for $10 and the first two expansions $5 ea, but when I look at their site, they're normal price. What do I need to get these prices?

Sale ended tuesday.

I don't mind the mouse-centric controls because I am allergic to hotkeys. I do dislike citystates, though. It feels like they got half of the way to a genuinely fun mechanic, ran out of time, and realized they'd made it too prominent in the hype to back out now.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:47 am

TarkisFlux wrote:The multiplayer in Assassins Creed Brotherhood

Oh gee, that's nice. I wouldn't know though, since the PC release was delayed at the last minute from the same date as the console release to "some time in 2011".

You know, just to make sure they can like blame missing the Christmas shopping season or something on pirates or something. And probably screw us PC users even further with some sort of draconian anti piracy measure where you have to snail mail your severed right thumb into EA before they unlock your legally purchased game.

However, the Hardcore mode doesn't really make enough difference. Like, at all.

Speaking of which, you know the "Weird Wild Desert" perk, that really fucking insulting level 0 only option that you have to pay for by forgoing an actual meaningful ability you might care about in order to have it.

The one that unlocks the "weirder aspects of the vegas wastelands". The one that gives you the impression you need to take it if you want the crazier missions and crap.

ITS A FUCKING LIE. What it SHOULD say is "puts about 12 hard to find and incredibly lame pop culture references into the game". Like that skeleton in the fridge outside of the starting town, THAT is very possibly the only thing that weird wild desert will ever do that you will actually find. Apparently it's a reference to the recent Indiana Jones movie.

Yes you paid a fucking real ability slot for that. Yes you could have been shooting faster instead of looking at that skeleton in that fridge and going "wait what, is that supposed to be Indiana Jones? Am I supposed to care? Is it gonna jump up and shoot me? Does it have cool loot? No? THEN WTF?"

The BEST thing weird wild desert does is that SOMEWHERE in the world there is ONE site where there is like a landed UFO and an alien ray gun both lifted wholesale from a vanilla fallout 3 addon pack.

After already being somewhat tired of fallout new vegas (which I somehow magically tried without being screwed by Steam, I wonder how, hmmm) reading the list of INCREDIBLY LAME and rather sparse pop culture references that is that Weird and Wild Wastelands thingy while trying to find walkthroughs telling me how to complete what turned out to be an irreversibly bugged side mission basically left be dropping the game in disgust.

I mean fuck you Obsidian and your typically shoddy work, but fuck you MORE because I could have been god damn shooting things faster.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:15 am

name_here wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:
name_here wrote:It's an email with direct links and I've never gotten this kind of email from blizzard before. I'll check the blizzard website manually.

EDIT: Yup, legitimate.
So what's the deal with this? A friend told me last night that WoW is on sale for $10 and the first two expansions $5 ea, but when I look at their site, they're normal price. What do I need to get these prices?
Sale ended tuesday.

Damn. About figures, oh well.

Severian · Post by **Severian** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:16 am

I like Obsidian, even if their games are unpolished.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:19 am

Same here, though admittedly I've only ever played them well after the patching was all done. As much as it ever is, at least.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 3:47 am

My primary experience with obsidian is Knights of the Old republic 2, which is basically only any good on the merits of being pretty much the same as 1 but was somewhat obviously and infamously only half completed when released and then of course never actually completed since (unless than many year long fan project finally reached some sort of conclusion).

So yeah, Obsidian, unpolished, unfinished and buggy. So bad that they make games buggier than Bethusda (a company well known for releasing great, but very buggy games)

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:48 am

Obsidian... did they do fucking Neverwinter Nights? I loved that game, except for all the bugs.

Also, I am taking a break from post-game Disgaea 3. Loving Cross Edge at the moment. Hot Spring scenes! (With Morrigan and her two friends <3) Magical Girl transformations! Swimsuits!

Oh and a good fighting system too.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:35 am

Obsidian was NWN2 and also NWN2 Mask of The Betrayer, which was superior in every possible way.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:36 am

Juggling Assassin's Creed II (near the end, I think. Need to go find 41 feathers), Prototype (mindless destruction is fun!), and I really need to begin reconstructing my file on Mass Effect 1.

Oh, and a cousin ended up hanging out for three hours today while he played Batman Arkham Asylum. He beat Bane before he wrapped it up and went home, in fact.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Dec 05, 2010 4:04 am

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is fun, but not really exceptional. I picked it up in anticipation of the large amount of time I'd spend sitting in a car this weekend.

It would not be very enjoyable if it weren't a portable game (or possibly emulated, for turbo mode), but as it is I am definitely having fun. Yesterday, I ran into possibly the most amusing use of "but thou must" I have ever seen in a video game.