Video Game thread XIII: Knights of the Bro Republic

[the tourist]

Still loving Halo 4. Got the To The Victor Go The Spoils monthly achievement in December. Going for it again this month. Over my last ten or so matches, I've put up ~100 more kills than deaths.

 

[No spoken words]

So I got the Mass Effect trilogy for Christmas, I'll report back in a year or two when I'm done

Oh shit, enjoy!

Despite NSW's coo-coo comments, Far Cry 3 remains awesome.

I liked Far Cry 3, just could not get totally into it, which you need to be for a game like that. Dishonored has been great thus far, took a fun, albeit telegraphed twist last night.

Gamertag = Traviud

Red Dead is so damn good. I'm way behind with that one, but it still looks fantastic. Graphics are definitely plateauing.

Red Dead is......oh god, we had a lot of fun playing that, let's just say that. Enjoy!

Oh, and, I shall add you as an xbox friend.

 

[IWasBored]

Sorcerer healing in swtor is so ridiculously op. I hit level cap on that character yesterday, smuggled a bunch of the mid-grade endgame gear over (its bind on pickup, but if you are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of in-game credits to do it, can be transferred between your own characters), and healed the hardest non-raid group content the game has right now, quite effortlessly. I've quit and come back to this game a few times in the year it's been out, and there are a lot of things I really hate about it sometimes, but then it goes and gets all kinds of fun...

 

[No spoken words]

Finished Dishonored.

Might go back to Far Cry 3 now.

 

[u2popmofo]

How long would you say it took you?

 

[No spoken words]

I'm not really sure....when I first started I played an hour here and an hour there...but the last week or so, I started playing a lot more.....so, not an exorbitant amount like when I'm getting down with Skyrim but enough so I didn't feel cheated. It's definitely not a game with tons of opportunities to wander or explore....you have some side missions but for the most part you're sticking to the main plot. Oh, and, you do have tons of latitude regarding your approach...you can go fully stealth, you can kill everyone, or inbetween, and it impacts game play later on.

 

[bono_212]

I assume you killed everyone?

 

[No spoken words]

I assume you killed everyone?

I actually tried not to early on...but towards the end, after a certain point, it was murder ahoy for the most part, with one or two important exceptions.

Believe it or not, in most games where you're given choices about how much killing to do, what sort of character to be, I take the moral high ground, even when I tell myself I'd like to just be a bad guy for once.

The only exception is when I play any GTA. Then, all bets are off and, really, everyone has to die.

 

[bono_212]

I'm pretty much the same way. Especially in Infamous. It sucked, because Travis went down the evil path, so I had to watch as he got all the great powers .

 

[u2popmofo]

Evil is the way to go in Infamous. Throwing cars at enemies, shooting red lightning out of your hands, etc. Awesome.

I tend to do the same as Mike in RPGs, being as good as possible. In open world actiony games, I'm pretty much a genocidal maniac. I kill everything in Far Cry 3. People. Tigers. Bears. Sharks. Cows. Pigs. Fish. Turtles. Birds. Everything.

Bonoz and LeMeLz, youz guyz should look into getting Alan Wake for the 360. I think it will be right up your alley considering I know you've mentioned liking scary type games. It's pretty much a mix of Twin Peaks, X-Files, and HP Lovecraft. On top of that, the general gameplay mechanics are a lot of fun. One of my favorite games this generation. You can probably find it for $10 or less now too. The full game, the added DLC, and the recent downloadable game (American Nightmare) are all pretty great.

 

[bono_212]

OH SHIT!

I forgot, I have an xBox now.


I'm on that. As soon as I get paid on Friday.

Oh damn, I'm excited.

 

[No spoken words]

I enjoyed Alan Wake.

Yeah, even in Infamous I was a good guy...but I've yet to play the 2nd in the series....

By the way, if you crazy married cats want to add me, I'm The Moon Is Up.

 

[bono_212]

I will eventually get an XBox live account, I'm sure. Maybe in a couple weeks here when I get my tax returns.

 

[the tourist]

I would have enjoyed Alan Wake more if I liked 3rd person more than I do. I am pretty much into 1st person or side-scrollers.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

NSW, let me know if you warm up to Borderlands 2. I haven't opened my copy yet. I'm still on Assassin's Creed III.

 

[No spoken words]

NSW, let me know if you warm up to Borderlands 2. I haven't opened my copy yet. I'm still on Assassin's Creed III.

If/when I go back to it, I definitely will.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Got Sleeping Dogs for Christmas. Lots of fun, and I'm going to Hong Kong in a week so it'll be cool to see if I get any strange sense of familiarity. Also picked up the Witcher 2 real cheap, any of you guys played it?

 

[cobl04]

Dumb Ways to Die (in Video Games) Parody - YouTube

 

[The Sad Punk]

Dancing Ezio is gonna give me the worst nightmares

 

[u2popmofo]

Got Sleeping Dogs for Christmas. Lots of fun, and I'm going to Hong Kong in a week so it'll be cool to see if I get any strange sense of familiarity. Also picked up the Witcher 2 real cheap, any of you guys played it?

The areas of the city in Sleeping Dogs are definitely modeled after areas of the real Hong Kong. That said, the geography in the game is completely screwed up in comparison. You should see some easily recognizable locations though (Victoria Peak, night markets in Kowloon, business area on Hong Kong Island, etc.), and a lot of recognizable architecture and roads. Have fun, I'm jealous. Spent a couple months there years back, have only been back once since, and that was just for a couple days.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

Not related to a specific game, but the industry in general - I just came across this article.

GameStop Pulls Back as Holiday Sales Drop | The Exchange - Yahoo! Finance

Frankly, I'm surprised Gamestop has survived as long as it has. From what I've seen, its prices generally aren't competitive and some of its business practices are downright awful. I assume that gamers go there largely for the sheer novelty of rude service from 17-year old nerds.

 

[u2popmofo]

A lot of people are blaming the sales decline on how long the life cycles of the present gen consoles have been. Many hardcore gamers have grown bored and moved to PC.

Gamestop's done a good job going out of their way to get the "best" pre-order bonuses, but a lot of other retailers have figured this out now too. I typically just go there to trade in games I know I'm not going to play any more, and use the credit to buy new games. I know I could get considerably more selling them myself, but I'm lazy. I'm surprised people still buy used games from them, the prices are miserable. Again though, I'm sure it's a similar "laziness" thing.

I remember the early days of EB / Gamestop, where you could trade in a new game, they'd give you 80% of the original value of the game as credit, and then sell it for $5 more than they gave you. Now they give you 20% of the original value, and sell it for $30 or more than they paid. Their profit is insane.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

Yeah, every once in a while I score an okay deal on some used games. But selling to them is often a bad idea. If you have anything relatively new, you're likely to get a bunch more selling on ebay. But I do get what you're saying - more tedious to sell online than just make the quick sale.

The one that really kills me is when they open a game then still insist on selling it as brand new. I think they usually say some BS about "testing" it or some such crap. That controversy with them opening games that customers pre-ordered and removing coupons was pretty despicable, too.

 

[u2popmofo]

I can't stand when stores do that. I've gotten into arguments at record stores before because their staff opened a new CD to listen to it in the display, and insisted to sell it to me at full price. Last I checked, that's the definition of "used". Somehow it's less used because an employee listened to it?

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

I think I may have actually shrugged if off in the past, but it's pure BS. If you're going to use my game, you should price it accordingly (I could go on a tangent about their pricing on used newer releases, but that's a whole other rant).

The one time I didn't accept it was when I was buying the item as a gift. I told them "hell no," walked out of the store and bought it on Amazon.

 

[u2popmofo]

Yeah, I don't understand buying a used game for $5 less than the new price. I'd much rather just spend $5 more and know I'm getting something that hasn't been sneezed on!

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

My all time favorite was when I was trading in a game I'd purchased just a few weeks earlier (I was trading all my Xbox 360 stuff in for PS3 after I got sick of the 360's string of system failures). They wouldn't take it due to some microscopic "crack" on the inner part of the CD that didn't affect the game itself at all (it played fine). I explained to them that the game was exactly the way I bought it from THEM a couple weeks earlier. The cashier was a full blown snotty douche about it - one of those types who clearly doesn't see how he's just begging for an ass-kicking. It was the closest I've ever come to physically grabbing someone on the other side of the counter.

 

[the tourist]

I should probably sell some of my old games that I'll never play again, huh? But not to GameStop. Fuck them.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

Sadly, I don't exactly think there's much competition these days. Ebay or bust I guess.

 

[the tourist]

Amazon could work, too. Actually, I think I like Amazon more for selling that sorta stuff than ebay.