Video Games

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:33 am

Ravengm, I think that they were going for more of a cRPG Champions of Norrath/Baldur's Gate thing than a recreation of the tabletop rules. That would explain all of the useless mathhammer feats and the 'character on rails' things and all that.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 5:22 pm

I actually enjoyed the Baldur's Gate gamestyle when I had the hankering for it. Daggerdale would have been at least entertaining instead of insulting if they managed to finish it instead of releasing a buggy, lackluster mess. They marketed it as "one o' them old timey hack n' slash dungeon crawls", and while they succeeded at the feel of it, they failed in basically every other way. Me complaining about lack of adherence to the tabletop rules was just more things for me to complain about. Besides, I have more character choice in something like Untold Legends or Diablo. Hell, I play free games on Kongregate that are better put together (and less buggy!).

Multiplayer still doesn't work, by the way.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:52 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'm playing Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and even though from an objective standpoint it's better than its predecessor in all of the important ways it still leaves me feeling kind of cold.

The part I found frustrating was that many of the dungeons didn't have boss fights. It felt pretty anticlimactic to get to the end of a large, difficult dungeon and just...walk out.

And I really don't understand why they did it that way; it clearly wasn't because they didn't like bosses, since the final dungeon has about a million of them.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:32 pm

On a less ragey note, I finally managed to get my copy of The Witcher to work after I realized there was a patch that got rid of the DRM. Hooray!

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:12 pm

So, what's this thing about Japan and America having different Final Fantasy titles?

I heard that most of them have been ported to the ps2, gba, etc..

I'm curious to hear the story behind this.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:26 pm

The US just up and skipped a few entries, going 1, 4, 6 or something like that, while naming them 1,2 and 3. I don't remember the exact flow of it, but they've since retconned it to be less confusing with ports and renames. For instance, check out the Wikipedia page for FFVI.

EDIT: Cleaned up url tag.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:42 am

So, I'm near the end of Bioshock 2. It's not as good as the first game...But I appreciate some of the weapons.

I'm also just a bit wondering how my playstyle's changed.

In the first game, I was a wrench monkey. I took all the tonics I could to increase wrench damage, and saved the weapon ammo for when I needed it.

In this game, you're just not fast enough to really work the Big Daddy Drill Ambush angle.

So I tend to use some of whatever works. Shotguns, machine guns...The spear gun is especially nice.

I'm also now Lord of the Automated Defenses, having gotten that power to summon an attack bot when I need one. If I see security, I hack it. I maxed out the research tracks for them, put together tonics to toughen them up/make them more effective.

Behold my minions, and despair.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:13 am

I just saw some of the new characters for Soul Calibur V.

"Oh, my, Gawd! You're wearing that swordbelt with those shoes? On behalf of fabulous good taste, I will punish you!"

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:51 pm

Maxus wrote:I just saw some of the new characters for Soul Calibur V.

"Oh, my, Gawd! You're wearing that swordbelt with those shoes? On behalf of fabulous good taste, I will punish you!"

What the fuck is up with the sabertooth lynx shoulderpads!?

Seriously, WTF?

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 4:13 pm

More dead animals mercilessly crammed onto shoulderpads for the sake of fashion.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 4:19 pm

Ravengm wrote:More dead animals mercilessly crammed onto shoulderpads for the sake of fashion.

Siegfried looks good, though.

Hail to the Empire!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:26 pm

Maxus wrote:
Ravengm wrote:More dead animals mercilessly crammed onto shoulderpads for the sake of fashion.
Siegfried looks good, though.

Hail to the Empire!

I'm confused why he felt the need to wear custom ball whackers, though...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:19 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
Maxus wrote:
Ravengm wrote:More dead animals mercilessly crammed onto shoulderpads for the sake of fashion.
Siegfried looks good, though.

Hail to the Empire!
I'm confused why he felt the need to wear custom ball whackers, though...

That got me, too.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:52 am

Builds up resistance for the knee shots.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:20 pm

I've been playing this free browser MMO called Metroplexity since January. It's pretty cool. At present it's in beta/alpha (Large amounts of planned content that's yet to be added, but the completed parts constitute beta). It's actually got an in-universe reason for player characters to recover from apparently fatal wounds, though the details are shrouded in mystery.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:45 pm

I went to the dark side and bought Minecraft.

I had a little money to splurge, and I try to do something fun every month.

And it's 25% off right now or some such.

So, I started off with a random seed based on the name of an extremely little-known Discworld character. And made a typo in it.

So, here in the land of Unlucky Charley, I have found resources are extremely handy. I found a pit in the middle of mountain which had some nice groups of coal and gravel.

Then I found a hole which had some good iron ore.

On a walk-around of my mountain--which I'd hollowed out and roofed over with glass by now. I have a few ideas to put galleries and such on the interior--I found some more veins of coal which went through a ridge.

And a buddy plugged the seed into...Cartograph? And came up with an aerial map.

So here's some pics. I'm getting to be proud of my setup.

For those who're wondering, Unlucky Charlie

is a scarecrow mentioned in Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. He's been used as a target in magical target practice for the Witch Trials for years and now he moves around on his own.

You don't ever see him do it. Just, one day, there'll be a scarecrow on his stake somewhere. Don't play tricks on him--you can hang clothes on him to dry, he likes to be useful, but remember to take them off of him before you go to bed. If he's near the table, put out a portion for him at meals, it's only polite.

If Unlucky Charlie has been to your house and feels he's been well-treated, you'll get a bumper crop of pumpkins this year, even if you didn't plant seeds.

Oh, and the Minecraft map does contain pumpkins. This, I understand, is a happy coincidence.

I'll get some pics of the mountain when I feel it's worth showing off. I'm trying to leave the exterior as intact as possible.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:58 pm

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-g ... minism.php

I'm pretty sure that the review is supposed to be funny, but I think it makes some thought-provoking points nonetheless.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:36 am

Heart of the Swarm got announced recently, and it's looking pretty cool. Apparently you get to choose which of two paths each unit goes down for their final upgrade.

Also, ActivisionBlizzard backed off on the price; it's going to sell at expansion pack price instead of full game price. I would have considered it worth $60 regardless, but then again I only play campaign anyway.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:12 am

So I've been playing some Hunted: the Demon's Forge. And its the shoddiest console game I've played in a long while.

Some of its not bad- buffing each other with spells, well done cutscenes you can pause or skip, and a couple of other things. But there are a number of really weird/stupid design choices that range from confusing to game-fucking.

A simple example is the menu system. Now for over a decade subtitle options have been in the audio menu, so in DVDs you can change the audio track and add subtitles. But Hunted is different. Hunted is special. Hunted puts the subtitles option in the Game options rather than the Audio options. And this isn't some random nitpick- a deaf friend of my brothers was over today and we couldn't find the subtitles option so for a long time he had no fucking clue what was going on. Other aspects of the menus are also stupid- if you have been playing coop splitscreen then quit to the main menu, the "Continue" option starts you playing single player.

Then there is the whole coop aspect. This game is built around coop. The game is early xbox quality and even more boring without it. But the way Hunted does coop is to have the campaign and character progress being saved to player one's profile. What this means is that if player two decides to play by themselves then almost none of what they have done is recorded. They have beginning equipment, no character upgrades, and no talent progression, so if they decide to play a later chapter they are fucked. Or, if they decide to carry on playing coop and have something as simple as having player two start the campaign they aso have no equipment or character upgrades.
This completely fucks up any actual coop since it ends up being player one and their sidekick player two. And you can't jump in and out while someone is playing which is the only way I'd accept that sort of coop.

Throughout the game are more of these weird design choices or lack of effort. Just where you think the game could be interesting it reminds you just how linear it is, how shitty the plot is and how little character the PCs have. Seriously, when the game characters start bitching about a mechanic the designers should stop using the fucking mechanic.

I mean, heres another example. The plot is instigated by this incredibly pale goth sorceress with a huge amount of cleavage called Seraphine. She's bitchy, leads you into danger and doesn't warn you of anything.Extremely suspicious. Relatively early in the game you fight this evil sorceress and see a cutscene showing her being given orders to kill you. However, in the special edition and in all likelihood as an addon you get an extra character skin of that evil sorceress called the "Seraphine skin". What the fuck! You could at least try to make it subtle and not give it away so soon, even if she is obviously evil.

I suspect that Bethesda split all the game designers and writers by quality, and put the good ones to work on Skyrim, the shit ones on this game and the ones clamouring for a modern game on Brink. Or at least I hope thats the case- it doesn't look good for Skyrim if this is the current standard of Bethesda games.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:43 pm

I've been playing a fair amount of league of legends lately. I'm actually pretty impressed by the variety of characters. No two seem quite the same. My current favorite is probably Corki for two reasons:
1) He's a helicopter. Enough said.
2) I have a harass (ult), debuff (q), "No, you shouldn't be trying to get in melee with me" (e), and a "Oh shit" (w) all while playing a ranged carry. Very well rounded set of skills.

Missile spam+armorshred+wall hop ganks just don't seem to get old.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:24 am

Bah. Corki is an over rated (and yet underused) out dated one trick pony. He STILL has mana reliance issues, and he has a limited and second rate move set, and he isn't an all rounder Tanky DPSer Utility Stunner Teleporting Dasher like almost all the new champs are.

Shred is his one good thing. And it is of somewhat questionable value. With the general undervaluing of Armour cost compared to it's vast effectiveness in the game your opponents SHOULD be able to laugh in your mustachioed face when you use Shred.

But the actual reality (apparently) is characters who rely on Armour or MR protection ends up being reliant on tiny shifts in the weekly meta game. No one in your ELO buying armour this week for no good reason? Corki kicks ass? Rammus popular at the moment? Not so good. Etc...

I tend to prefer MR reduction strategies and champs, and unfortunately the same goes for them. IF players grow a brain and realise MR is awesome, cheap, and completely counters what I am doing there is NOTHING you can do to stop them.

Hurray for the Tanky Pants game

Meanwhile my favorite champion, Teemo, already at the wrong end of viable has recently received nothing but nerfs and for absolutely no good reason. So I for one am playing less.

PS Also the big championships were apparently a fiasco. And they have quietly canceled the third map on the sly. And the IP gain for Tribunal is a fraction of what was promised (to the point of being an insult to those who engage in the Tribunal). And, and, and... etc...

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:05 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:Bah. Corki is an over rated (and yet underused) out dated one trick pony. He STILL has mana reliance issues, and he has a limited and second rate move set, and he isn't an all rounder Tanky DPSer Utility Stunner Teleporting Dasher like almost all the new champs are.

Between Valkyrie and flash, I have a pretty good escape set (I usually run flash and ghost). I'll go 1/4/4 every now and then, but he get DPS, teleport, and one of the top zoning abilities in the game (his ult spam). He's not super good, but with MR 5 runes and utility tree along with manamune I find his mana issues pretty nonexistent with my playstyle.

More importantly, I like the way he lets me play (harass, harass,
phosphorus+gattling nuke, Valkyrie tower dive kill, flash out). I agree he's not top tier. Totally fun though.

Shred is his one good thing. And it is of somewhat questionable value. With the general undervaluing of Armour cost compared to it's vast effectiveness in the game your opponents SHOULD be able to laugh in your mustachioed face when you use Shred.

But the actual reality (apparently) is characters who rely on Armour or MR protection ends up being reliant on tiny shifts in the weekly meta game. No one in your ELO buying armour this week for no good reason? Corki kicks ass? Rammus popular at the moment? Not so good. Etc...

I'm level 13 and have only bought two characters. I can't even DO ranked. I just drop into normal matched alone or with some friends. I run about as many wins as defeat by myself and almost always win when I duo queue with a certain friend. So it's honestly not that bad with who I'm being matched against.

Indicator of skill level: I've never seen anyone besides me place a ward down except for a level 30 friend that has been playing for a year and I generally only get the ward on baron because I like building the CHP5 into Wriggle's Lantern.

I tend to prefer MR reduction strategies and champs, and unfortunately the same goes for them. IF players grow a brain and realise MR is awesome, cheap, and completely counters what I am doing there is NOTHING you can do to stop them.

Hurray for the Tanky Pants game

Meanwhile my favorite champion, Teemo, already at the wrong end of viable has recently received nothing but nerfs and for absolutely no good reason. So I for one am playing less.

Fuck you. I hate playing against Teemo. He is ridiculously annoying.

PS Also the big championships were apparently a fiasco. And they have quietly canceled the third map on the sly. And the IP gain for Tribunal is a fraction of what was promised (to the point of being an insult to those who engage in the Tribunal). And, and, and... etc...

The opening match of AAA vs EG was really cool to watch. The rest were pretty lackluster except for Dyrius playing Singed in one other match. The cool parts of the championship boil down to this:
1) AP alistars
2) Singed trolling near his tower to get easy kills when their flash is down
3) That's pretty much it really. The rest of the play was really boring.

PS: Can't believe they canceled the third map. The game could use more map variety since right now every ward goes in exactly the same order all the time and lanes are determined at load screen.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:28 pm

So, I've been replaying starcraft 2 on hard mode, and got to All In (Nydus version). I proceeded to get spectacularly overrun.

Both flanks collapsed more or less simultaneously against a massive bum-rush of zerglings, roaches, and ultralisks.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:31 pm

Besides the Singed and Cow love, I also got a kick out of watching lanewick and HotShot's amazing game as Nidalee.

Phonelobster, I didn't really see a lot of health and resist being built at Dreamhack. How does that jibe with your tank pants theory? (Although to be fair WW and Nida did amazingly with tank builds).

As for Corki, I really don't think his armor shred is the big deal about him. I hear that all the time, but-- he already is doing true damage on hit with magic damage from his spells. They could replace the armor shred with some other effect entirely and It would still feel like Corki to me. As far as I'm concerned, Corki is long-range poke + escape + huge DPS by spamming skills while autoattacking.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:18 pm

ubernoob wrote:I'm level 13 and have only bought two characters.

Oh well screw it, level 13 you can run anything and be not just viable but AWESOME. I wish I was still level 13, I'd run DPS Janna again. She was awesome, I can't use her now... so sad...

I can't even DO ranked. I just drop into normal matched alone or with some friends.

Here is the dumb thing. By the time you CAN do ranked, ranked won't be worth your time.

Since advancing 30 levels in normal will give you a (secret) normal ELO. You probably aren't a useless moron, so that ELO will be... something. But your Ranked ELO will be, well, basically nothing.

So at that point if you switch from normals (which by the time you are 30 will be full of competent allies and enemies and far less disconnects, griefers, morons and total assholes) to Ranked then suddenly in Ranked you will be awash in a sea of morons, assholes, etc...

I just play normal. Basically solo Queue, in part for that reason, but also because when Ranked came out I started maining Teemo... and ranked players are rather pissy about you playing non-viable messes like Teemo.

I've never seen anyone besides me place a ward

That doesn't mean they are all that bad. At a certain level of play you need to learn to place wards... OR learn how to survive without them.

Fuck you. I hate playing against Teemo. He is ridiculously annoying.

If you think Teemo is annoying you haven't seen mine. I play super annoying Teemo. I spend much of the game doing things to opponents EXCLUSIVELY intended to annoy them. Why? Because I KNOW that extra poison dart or blinding shot will be healed in like 2 seconds and achieve nothing but rage... but I need to feed the power of my undocumented global Taunt while buying Tank Pants...

The cool parts of the championship boil down to this:

The bad things boil down to...
1) Highly limited champ selections.
2) No Teemo
3) Numerous technical issues and disconnects, including quiet a lot that apparently eliminated one of the most interesting sounding teams very early.

PS: Can't believe they canceled the third map.

I can't either, and there is hardly an official announcement on their site. But very reliable sources on other sites quoting Riot staff at major industry events say it's so... and there has certainly been no denial that I have seen from Riot. Though they have said they "may start work on ANOTHER map... later". Considering how long it took them to NOT make the current other map... well... hello map three in 2016...

Orion wrote:How does that jibe with your tank pants

There are small variations in meta game among various ELOs and gaming styles.

Very high level, very organized Team play against known and highly familiar opponents IS different. At least a bit.

I play solo queue. That's pretty dramatically different. It's by far the default mode of the game and in solo queue... buy tank pants and win.

If you are level 13 or anywhere under say, 20ish. I STRONGLY RECOMEND. Regardless of your build, throw in 2-3 tanky or partially tanky items, make them the first items in your build order, make sure your starting item HAS HP ON IT. ESPECIALLY on DPS or \burst casters. Watch it win you 1v1s as your low level opponents are COMPLETELY CONFUSED by your not dying as fast as they are.

ubernoob wrote:but with MR 5 runes and utility tree along with manamune

That IS mana issues. You had to buy one of the best Mana resource items in the game, spam abilities to feed it, and even dedicated your runes to the mana issue.

You are corki. You could be, perhaps should be, buying flat Armour Piercing runes and Move Speed runes, even flat damage bonus runes for his passive.

There are other DPS and ranged DPS out there who don't have to do that. So they get to use their items, their time, and their rune sets on OTHER things.