Video Game thread XIII: Knights of the Bro Republic

[Dfit00]

Maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention, but there's nothing I'm really excited about coming out soon. I can't think of a single game

Give Twisted Metal a try in February.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I've never played any Twisted Metal before. They're like crazy destruction derby games?

 

[u2popmofo]

Imps, new Gears maps came out today.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Twisted Metal 1 and 2 are car combat royalty and some of the finest games to come out of the original Playstation era.

The new game is being developed by Eat Sleep Play, headed by the director of the original games and also of God of War fame.

Should be good.

 

[mobvok]

You didn't play SSX3?!

Nope. Good, I take it?

Yeah, definitely one of my favorite games from the last generation of consoles. Had an awesome soundtrack too.

I got a weird/cool SSX 3 vibe while wandering around Skyrim a bit. Putting everything together on the same mountain was a great idea, and I sank a ton of hours into it.

Didn't like later on, though, how realistic the jumps and routes got. Tricky is the zenith of the crazy routes- Mercury (?) City was really impressive.

 

[u2popmofo]

JT, how can you say you're not excited for this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckOSak9uM2w

 

[Jive Turkey]

That does look pretty cool. I've never played any Max Payne games; I always thought the bullet time stuff was gimmicky and lame. But that looks like fun. If it gets good reviews, I'll check it out

 

[u2popmofo]

That's too bad. I'm sure they feel ancient now, but they were fantastic at the time. I really like Remedy, their games not only have really unique, quirky, and extremely well done stories, but the gameplay itself is a blast. Remedy themselves seem extremely happy with Max Payne 3, even though they're not developing it. Apparently Rockstar has done a good job still involving them and getting their input regardless, which is pretty cool. It's weird that even though they have fairly huge sales, there are still some "classy" video game companies out there.

 

[bono_212]

I've never played any Twisted Metal before. They're like crazy destruction derby games?

yesssssss

 

[u2popmofo]

Resident Evil 6 - November 20th

 

[Jive Turkey]

I cant wait to see footage for the new God of War that comes out in the winter... Not sure if anything is expected soon

 

[Canadiens1131]

That Max Payne 3 footage looks nice, but, uh, if you've spend 50+ hours in the Grand Theft Auto game engine, you really don't want to spend more time there even if the deck chairs have been rearranged.

I realize that Rockstar spends a ton developing a game engine for one console generation, but it just feels like throwing on a pair of slippers that are worn out from years of heavy use at this point.

 

[mobvok]

It took me another 2 weeks to work up the enthusiasm to play Skyward Sword again, which is ominous in of itself, but I tried playing for another hour or so today and quit in frustration. I've felt headaches handling the new controls, and the same arbitrary Nintendo fetch quest padding. "Find 3 of my friends, and then I'll tell you where Zelda went!" I'm confused by the gap between all I'd heard that this was the "best Zelda ever" and the frustration I'm experiencing.

I'm using this time as a zen period to try and approach it even-mindedly again, but I'm getting close to simply saying "forget it" and moving on to a different game.

 

[mobvok]

I've backed down from Defcon Rage and think I've got a handle on the motion controls. Well, not real well, but enough to get me through to the Lanayru Desert at least.

Playing Skyrim and SS back to back, they really feel like polar opposites on the same spectrum of action game, which is strange considering that earlier Zelda games like Ocarina of Time would be far closer to a middle ground. Skyward Sword has really stripped out a lot of the general Hyrule Field-style open wandering while Skyrim is all about that feeling.

Fighting dragons, I wish there was the sort of Z-targeting automated move that activated based on timing, the same sort of Parry attacks that Zelda started introducing in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. But Skyward Sword's combat is much less about defensive posturing (using the shield is damn near impossible to reliably do in combat- shove the nunchuck forward), and more about the exact blade positionig with the WiiMotionPlus. About 10 hours in, I'm not sure it's worth the tradeoff.

 

[LJT]

I never really had any issues with the motion controls, if you go a bit too wild with the controller then it did need a bit of re calibration, but once I toned down the wild swinging I had very little issue, except when the batteries needed recharging, plus I found the shield the easiest thing to use. I also found it to have the least padding of all Zelda games, but it's something most games of this ilk are always guilty of, fetch quests blegh.

I don't think it's the best Zelda ever, it places second for me behind Majora's Mask, which I contend is the most fun and brilliantly realised world of any of the Zelda's.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Well, I finally got around to playing Gears 3. From the first time I put the disc in, I think I played for six hours straight... at least. Fuck, it was good to be back. Finished the campaign today. Only a rental, but I think I badly need to buy it and get online sometime.

Spoiler

I love this thing.

 

[u2popmofo]

Yes, buy it! Horde & Beast Mode online are fantastic. Awesome game.

 

[mobvok]

I never really had any issues with the motion controls, if you go a bit too wild with the controller then it did need a bit of re calibration, but once I toned down the wild swinging I had very little issue, except when the batteries needed recharging, plus I found the shield the easiest thing to use. I also found it to have the least padding of all Zelda games, but it's something most games of this ilk are always guilty of, fetch quests blegh.

well for me, the senseless, trolling fetch quests in Skyward Sword feel the most infuriating by far. Wind Waker gets a lot of crap for the Triforce shard quest near the end, but that's one, big digestible segment that can be broken up while completing the last two Temples.

En route to the Fire Sanctuary in Skyward Sword, this sequence occurs:

1) pass by a waterfall
2) find a random flame blocking the path, learn that water can put it out
3) go back to the waterfall, fill your empty bottle with water
4) put out the fire
5) go into the next room, learn there's another flame blocking the next door
6) walk back even further to the original waterfall, fill an empty bottle with water, walk back
7) put out the fire
8) go to the next room/dungeon entrance, find an *even bigger* fire which can only be put out with *lots* more water than available at the waterfall
9) learn that you need to travel back to a completely different region to get an item that can put out the fire
10) travel to that region, swim through some corridors, get the item and have a companion carry it with you
11) COMPLETELY ARBITRARILY AND FOR NO REASON have the game force you to land in a different section of the map far away from your goal, drops enemies along the path back up to where you wanted to go, fail the quest if your companion gets injured, and have the companion follow unnecessarily closely in order to make it more difficult.
12) put out the fire
13) enter the Fire Sanctuary

in exchange for this 20 minute ordeal, we have successfully walked down a corridor.

there is no narrative aspect gained by this. it isn't a puzzle, and there are no gameplay concepts tested besides "can you use an empty bottle?" and "kill enemies the same way you've already done". We don't even learn the surrounding terrain any better, because this happens about 2/3rds of the way through the game and forces backtracking across places we've already been. it's just an aggressive, pointed stalling tactic so IGN will brag about the game having 40 hours of gameplay.

In Ocarina of Time, is it a fetch quest to have to return to Hyrule Castle Town and buy the Keaton Mask before the guard allows you to go up Death Mountain? Yes, but it does two extremely important things at the same time: first, it introduces/dips your toe into the gameplay mechanics of the mask trading game. And perhaps more importantly, it has a strong narrative role. It's realistic that a Royal Guard wouldn't let a 10 year old boy up Death Mountain so easily, and it also emphasizes he's 10. Link's age is obviously extremely important in Ocarina of Time, so anything that heightens the differences between pre and post Temple of Time Link adds value to the core of the game itself. If Nintendo cut the Keaton Mask quest, the game would be faster, but also worse. That's a well designed fetch quest.

I'm mostly still playing because the dungeon puzzles are legitimately well designed, and I want to keep playing with Fi to find how deep the rabbit hole of stupid goes. "Caution! Did you know you are low on health? Find health!"

 

[u2popmofo]

This trailer is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfOOOAN9e9w

 

[mobvok]

give IGN credit for being thorough

IGN N-Gage: Games, Cheats, News, Reviews, and Previews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upy3WOgQVvE

 

[The Sad Punk]

Whoa AOEII

Since Steam released AOEIII, I've started playing it again, as there are way more players than last time I tried it out. Honestly think it's always been quite underappreciated, AOEII has dated pretty badly but AOEIII is still a lot of fun.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Love AOEII. That was a nice trip down memory lane, and funny too. Thank you.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Kingdoms of Amularuaalurlmalur is getting good reviews, judging by the one review I read on IGN. Anyone grabbing it? I was a bit disappointed by the demo.

 

[mobvok]

AOEII has dated pretty badly

ugh don't wanna hear that. be pristine, memories!

but guess at least graphically it's hard to age well when the game uses 2-D fixed perspective sprites instead of 3-D. I remember Age of Mythology was fun.

I just bought the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus collection, as part of a modest running project to plug holes in my background, other titles in this project I've never started/finished:

Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy VI
Link to the Past
Beyond Good and Evil

 

[the tourist]

I got Alan Wake free when I bought my 360 a year ago. I just started playing it Friday night. Neat little game.

 

[u2popmofo]

Kingdoms of Amularuaalurlmalur is getting good reviews, judging by the one review I read on IGN. Anyone grabbing it? I was a bit disappointed by the demo.

I didn't like the demo either, was extremely disappointed. A lot of journalists have gone out of their way to confirm that the demo doesn't represent the final build at all (crashes, weird conversation skips, etc). I can't decide what to do on it at the moment, maybe wait for a while and get it further down the line when the cost drops considering I still have so many other games to play / finish.

I got Alan Wake free when I bought my 360 a year ago. I just started playing it Friday night. Neat little game.

One of my favorite games on this generation of consoles, love it. Glad to hear you're liking it. I'm really excited for American Nightmare later this month.

 

[Canadiens1131]

So I've upgraded my PC video card and bought a new power supply mostly for playing Battlefield 3.

After a couple of years muddling around console FPS, there is really no substitute for a mouse, keyboard, and 63 other mofos running, rolling, and flying around in a massive map. Good to be back on the ol' PC

And let''s not forget the all-consuming mother of all strategy games:

 

[RavenBlue]

I see that Fallout:New Vegas Ultimate Edition is out. Have they fixed the bugs in the game? I've heard good things about the DLC and would be willing to shell out if it meant that they fixed the freezing issues from before.

My fiance has built up and old 486 computer to play old games on. Been totally rocking the original Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle lately.

 

[u2popmofo]

 

[bono_212]

I was a 360 just so I can play Alan Wake