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  • We finally beat that co-op Portal 2. It was super fun, but the last challenge was kind of a let down compared to having to crash into each other in mid-air, which was in like the second or third series of tests.
  • I've been playing alot of Bastion. It's a good game.
  • I picked it up too. What weapon set are you going with? I was going with the machete/bow combo, until those little birds started messing me up. I'm using the blunderbuss now.
  • I don't know what compelled me to do so, but I've been playing a bunch of Rogue Galaxy lately. I just got the dog with the robot machinegun arm and a big axe in my party. Hell yes.
  • Bastion is probably one of the best games I've played in a long time, and god -damn- is it ever pretty. The narration thing is particularly cool also. Have you run across the Singer or been to the swamp yet? Easily some of my favorite parts right there.

    Everyone should play this. The demo gives you a good taste of things, but it's a trip that deserves to be taken.

    No one asked me, but the Machete is definitely my go-to melee weapon. I love all of the guns though, and switch between them frequently. The dual pistols are definitely one of the best all-rounders though, especially once they're upgraded.
  • By the end I was Billows/Mortar all the way, but before them I used every weapon as they game them to me and considered almost all of them "the next big thing."
  • Billows/Mortar is like some sort of humanoid tank combo. Slow moving and immobile half the time, but hits like a bitch.

    I kept the Pyth and Hense invocations on the whole game, so pretty much half of my fights consisted of *roll* *counter* *roll* *counter* *shoot guns* *roll*
  • I've found that combining ranged weapons is easy, but not as satisfying as including some kind of melee. The billows/spear is sweet because you get a damaging follow up to the knock-back. I also like hammer and pistoles/spine shooter.
  • Billows gets nuts once you get the DOT for them. That combined with the potion that gives you life drain is uhhhhmazzing.
  • I've been rocking the Rifle and Machete for most of the game, or alternatively the Rifle and Musket.
  • Been playing Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet for the last day or so. You can tell they wanted to design something that felt a lot like Super Metroid, because it does. I like it.
  • I'm still struggling with the challenge rooms in Vanquish. I've only been able to beat 1-3 so far... I'm also playing Hard Corps: Uprising.
  • Catherine
    Persona 3
    Champions Online Free-For-All
  • Watching my roommate play Catherine. The puzzle climbing seems pretty neat, but I'm reserving judgment on the story. I think a lot of people are rushing to give it credit for being one of the few games that try to tackle different types of relationships, but I don't think that's necessarily enough. No one in their right mind would say Valkyria Chronicles was a bold examination of racial tension or discrimination, and so far, Catherine seems like a comparably shallow examination of sexuality. It's got stock characters, lots of cliches, and the script delivered by anime voice actors isn't really doing it for me. Granted, this was just after one session, so we'll see.

    As it is, a lot of this silly stuff seems more acceptable in the high-school milieu of Persona. Persona has a silent self-insertable protagonist with, "Hey, what if the cute athletic chick and the shy traditional chick at my school dressed up in dominatrix gear and we fought monsters secretly at night?" and Shin Megami Tensei is "Hey, if I was literally the last guy on Earth, that girl at school would finally pay attention to me!" then Catherine is, "Despite being a slovenly code monkey, I have to choose between two beautiful women, one who wants commitment, one who's a crazy femme fatale! (Also see: virgin/whore)" A lot seems to hang on the story, they're spending enough time on it that it needs to be good, not 'good for video game nerds who haven't read a book in their lives.' The game drops more f-bombs, but that doesn't equal maturity.

    Also, take a drink whenever Vincent's mouth opens agape, or his eyes go comically wide. It got a little distracting for me that it was the ONLY expression he made the entire time I was watching. I'll certainly stick with it to the end, but so far, it's not quite what I was hoping for.
  • I beat it, my ending seemed about right.
  • Recently beat Batman: Arkham Asylum, and tore myself away from Parasite Eve 3. I've now moved on to trying to finally beat Demon's Souls and starting Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.
  • When you say you tore yourself away do you mean literally? Like someone caught you in a bear trap and forced you to play that game? Because that is the only way I could see anyone playing it.
  • This is the first thing I thought of when you said bear trap
  • Best (possibly only) good part of Tom Goes to the Mayor.
  • Dave said:

    When you say you tore yourself away do you mean literally? Like someone caught you in a bear trap and forced you to play that game? Because that is the only way I could see anyone playing it.



    Actually, I kind of liked it. The story was awful. The cut scenes made me cringe, and were thankfully skippable. The way Aya ran when she didn't have a gun made me want to scream at the animator who thought that anyone trained by professional soldiers would swing their arms like some spastic japanese school girl. Sitting there pressing square for 10 minutes straight trying to get even ONE of the skills on the DNA board to go up, without having the other plummet was an exercise in patience that I thought would break me at times.

    But I rather enjoyed the gameplay itself, and I'm a sucker for upgradeable weaponry. In the end, though, the pile of better games staring at me reproachfully from my backlog convinced me to move on.
  • Decided to sign up for EA's Origin service and bought Mirror's Edge for 4.99. Definitely worth the money so far, I like the game's style and it's fun. There are no time trail leaderboards online anymore but I'm fine with that.
  • Catherine is a fun ride the first time through, but its amazing how little of your choices affect the narrative. For most of it you're just watching Vincent in varying degrees of freaking out while things happen around him.

    The true ending with Katherine was also kind of lame. Didn't help that the game seemed to be trying to make me hate her. The Catherine end is a lot better, but for some reason I never felt as attached to either of them as I did Chie or Chihiro in Persona.
  • I don't get your chie comparison at all and I guess you said chihiro because she has glasses.
  • I'm not comparing the individual characters, I'm just saying I was never as attached to either Catherine's as I was to the love interests in the Persona games, despite the romance angle being Catherine's main thrust.

    It seemed like both Catherine's were being treated by antagonists right up until the very end, so it was difficult to see why Vincent should end up with either of them.
  • TalonG4 said:

    Decided to sign up for EA's Origin service and bought Mirror's Edge for 4.99. Definitely worth the money so far, I like the game's style and it's fun. There are no time trail leaderboards online anymore but I'm fine with that.


    Dang, if Mirror's Edge is only 5 bucks I might just buy it a second time, just so I can actually get the DLC courses (which don't work on a Steam copy.) I loved that game.
  • If you plan on it, that sale ends today. There's a bunch of other shit on sale for 5 dollars too.

    I got bf2 and an gonna rock some project reality.
  • Something like 20+ hours into Rogue Galaxy. The drama in this game is extremely funny and out of nowhere. If more JRPGS were like this game then the genre might not be in the rut that its in now.
  • Something like 20+ hours into Rogue Galaxy. The drama in this game is extremely funny and out of nowhere. If more JRPGS were like this game then the genre might not be in the rut that its in now.



    My roommate was playing through that game (may have ragequit the final boss?) and it was a lot better than I ever expected.

  • Doing the obligatory Mass Effect 1 and 2 playthrough with my new main man Francis York Shepard, Deadly Premonition when I get the time and Fist Of The North Star: Ken's Rage in between. Need to go back sometime and finish Tales Of Vesperia and hard mode in Vanquish too! Gah, fuckin' games!
  • Something like 20+ hours into Rogue Galaxy. The drama in this game is extremely funny and out of nowhere. If more JRPGS were like this game then the genre might not be in the rut that its in now.



    Sounds like I need to go back and finish this game. Level 5 has a lot of talent, and I have high hopes for them since they picked up Yasumi Matsuno. Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games...
  • I liked Rogue Galaxy a lot up until a point, then I got bored and kind of fell off of it. Now Graz is playing Dark Cloud 2 again and it's got us fiending for more Level 5 stuff, even to the point of considering White Knight Chronicles 2 (co-op in that... good or bad? Any word?) Whatever Matsuno does with them should be amazing. We may have to stop playing videogames altogether after it comes out.
  • So do these Level 5 games have ok story and characters? I only ask since they're in charge of the concept and writing of Gundam Age, but I haven't heard much about their games.
  • Starcraft 2 and League of Legends are what I'm spending my time with.
  • I guess now I have to start playing Ogre Battle again.
  • Since it is officially kosher to post up now, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - http://gear-fish.com/?reviews=insanely-twisted-shadow-planet

    tl;dr version: Super Metroid (like I mentioned before), the campaign is really short, but heavy on atmosphere. The last area scared the crap out of me and Lantern Run (the multiplayer stuff) is super fun in a group, and probably the coolest surprise in the game.
  • I have been gaming like crazy this week. I just got Radiant Historia and haven't even touched it, despite how excited I've been to play it.

    There were a couple solid XBLIG titles this week (Rundown - http://gear-fish.com/?p=541) but in particular, if you guys dig puzzle titles, I friggin' love Annecto and have been playing the crap out of that.

    Parasitus: Cold Ninja Fusion Zero Hour Time Portal X Bloodlines is pretty fun also, although it has some rather glaring flaws (somewhat unbalanced difficulty for instance), it's a pretty cool sidescroller. It reminds me of SNES/Genesis era Castlevania/Contra, although its closer to Castlevania in gameplay thus far. It doesn't wholly feel like either, but those are the closest cousins I can think of.

    Also, thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle 3, I have experienced Minecraft. I had managed to avoid it entirely and now I wish I had never played it. That game is a soul-sucking creature. For as ugly and as pointless as it is, somehow I just lost like three days of my week to it.

    I mean, the other titles are pretty cool too, but fuck Minecraft man.
  • E.Y.E. Cybermancy for the PC-- AKA the 'strangest' game I have ever played.

    When I purchased it, there were no reviews, no manuals-- almost no information on this indie game.
    There were only a few sketchy gameplay videos and screenshots that only created more questions than answered them (along with a forum thread titled "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?" on a game board).

    E.Y.E. game is a Sci-Fi based FPS with RPG elements (think Dues Ex's eccentric cousin with dementia).
    And I, a fan of FPS RPGs, made the impulsive decision to give it a try.
    Thus E.Y.E. became the first video game that I have purchased on curiosity alone.

    The plot thickens when you initially load up the game, hoping to find a intro movie giving a backdrop for the story, and instead you are greeted with a character creation screen. You see strange RPG-like statistics fill up the page "High Pis-Force Mal, Mental Balance 16, Moderate Hack Bonus" and etc. At this point, you have no idea of the gravity each statistic poses within the game (only to be explained with a list of quasi-helpful tutorial videos in-game). When you finish scratching your head and give your character a name you are thrown into the game.

    When I loaded the game up, I found myself in the midst of futuristic samurai politics and a war between humans(?) and a demonspawn whose ranks include god-zilla proportion, goblin-esque looking robots with machine guns and rocket launchers.

    And yet there is something elusively addicting about the gameplay that sucks me in every evening. There's just something cool about blocking bullets and decapitating monsters in a fiery explosion from a katana slice and then returning fire with a sub-machine gun pistol wielded in the other hand. Or opening up the hack screen to hack an opponent's cyber-brain and ordering them to go completely postal on their comrades.
  • When I watched the video that is on steam for this I was immediately interested, but not interested enough to spend $20. If this was $5 I would have bought it without question.
  • I'm $20 interested in any game like Deus Ex. I will look into this.
  • Don't expect to be enthralled by the story, if you do.
    Although, the gameplay is rewarding and fun-- once you get the hang of it.

    The learning curve of the game mechanics will frustrate you, as in "What the hell is this stat? Where the hell do I go?" (Enable HUD icons in Options; it's off by default, but it will make your gaming experience a lot better)
    Try your best to tolerate the tutorial videos.

    Other advice very easily missed at the beginning of the game:
    Ctrl+Spacebar = Superjump
    Shift = Superspeed
    Crouching regenerates your stamina more quickly
    ***Research Medkits as soon as you have the available research funds and items***
    You can buy stealth cloaking at the medical facility
    You have the ability to switch to Medium and Heavy armor at the beginning of the game
  • Just based off of your description alone, this sounds like everything I have always wanted in a game. I'll have to check this out when I get home.
  • Been bouncing between Bastion, magic 2012 and Portal 2 co-op I'm pleased with all of them so far. oh and Dragon age 2 DLC it was alright some cool items and a nice side story.
  • image
    Just got Catherine after waiting for it to ship from my sister back in the States. This is the note that was on it when I opened the box.
  • I played Braid as part of the Humble Indie Bundle, did not care for it. Also played Atom Zombie Smasher, its pretty good.
  • My friend and I got pretty drunk the other night and played the versus mode in Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation VS Zeon on the PS2 for an incredibly long time. I'm amazed at the mileage we got out of that
  • MSG: Federation VS Zeon was the best Gundam game.
  • More thoughts on this later, but I think I fucking hate From Dust. Why does neither Quiet Mode nor Turn Off Music silence the awful tuneless dijiridoo bullshit?
  • Because were you to see an unseen force rip massive chunks out of the landscape that's the sound it would probably make
  • So much of E.Y.E. is just fucking terrible. Worst English, worst writing anyway so who cares, worst story, worst interfaces, but the hacking is straight out of Shadowrun, there's like a billion skill trees, you can get a katana and a sword, steal moneys from ATMs and use them upgrade your cyberbrain.

    What a weird, shitty game that I still want to play anyway.
  • Yes, the translations are absolutely horrible; along with the eyesore of actually reading any of the text.
    There's a lot of flaws about the game that stick out like a sore thumb.

    Careful with those ATM's, though.
    For nothing is more silly than an ATM instantly counter-hacking your cyberbrain and killing you based due to the flukey hack system.