Video Games

[A Hammer]

Yeah, most likely. The global cooldown mechanic in itself leads to a certain style of ability use (i.e., spam a small subset of your abilities) so if you don't have a decent spectrum of things to do outside of those abilities, then things are going to suck. Individual weapons might be considered discrete abilities, but far too many classes have access to only two guns. Which bores you to tears. Which is what happens when you play an Adept.

Contrast this, if you will, to playing an Adept in the first game. You had a wide selection of "activated" powers - ten of them, in fact - and could reasonably expect to use all of them in a given fight. Well, all but one if you were doing things right.

Now that I think about it... I'm guessing that you never manually used your squadmates' powers? Because those run on their own cooldowns seperate from yours, but calculate line of sight from the player, which combined with the generally short global cooldowns should let you use one ability or another more or less constantly. Not as sweet as an ME1 adept, obviously, but it still seems like that'd alleviate your main beef with the gameplay.

[cthulhu]

The best spells in dragon age are: Mass Paralysis, Force Field, Crushing Prision, Mass Heal and Cone of cold.

If you have all those you win.

The optimal party make up is 2 x mages, 1 x warrior, 1 x rogue. You do need a warrior to tank, especially vs revenants. Do not play a warrior yourself as there are a billion warrior options and you can pick whatever.

Rogues actually do more damage than anyone else, but only with a few highly specific dual wielding abilities and only if they backstab. Basically, momentum is the best ability in the game and you need it.

So basically you stick your warrior in front of the bad guy, your rogue behind the the mages lock down.

[NineInchNall]

Now that I think about it... I'm guessing that you never manually used your squadmates' powers? Because those run on their own cooldowns seperate from yours, but calculate line of sight from the player, which combined with the generally short global cooldowns should let you use one ability or another more or less constantly. Not as sweet as an ME1 adept, obviously, but it still seems like that'd alleviate your main beef with the gameplay.

Used them manually all the time, 'cause no matter whether I chose 'active' power use or not, I still had to manually tell the bastards to use Concussive Shot or Overload or Slam or any of the other powers that didn't suck.

Of course, it doesn't really address the issue: My character's action loop is simplistic, boring, and needlessly repetitive. Doing things with other characters, no matter what those things are, will never have an affect on what my character's doing.

I guess even that little bit is more than most players are used to, though, so it's understandable from a marketing perspective that Bioware made the changes they did. It's just smart business to broaden the appeal of a successful franchise, and the number of people used to managing all the stuff that normally comes with RPGs is much smaller than the number of people who aren't. *shrug*

Oddly enough, the only class that plays pretty much the same in both games is the Soldier. In the second game you really only use Adrenaline Rush and your ammo powers. In the first game you only really used Immunity, Adrenaline Rush, and your weapon power.

Specifically:
1) Activate Immunity
2) Kill enemies until Immunity runs out.
3) If all enemies are dead go to 5.
4) Take cover until Immunity recharges or use Adrenaline Rush to immediately recharge it.
5) Go to 1.



Most people said that the ME1 Soldier was their favorite class, the most powerful class, and the most fun class. They said things like this about biotics:

I found lift to be pretty good but I didnt see the use of biotics if they only stall the enemy, as long as I dont have the firepower it seemed contradictory in the end.

These are seriously the majority of players, so it makes sense that Bioware would make the sequel's classes play more like that.

*sigh*

The best spells in dragon age are: Mass Paralysis, Force Field, Crushing Prision, Mass Heal and Cone of cold.

*cough* Crushing Prison *cough* Force Field *cough* Blood Wound *cough*

[Parthenon]

[*]the combat ...

No, the combat is not fucking excellent. It's fucking repetitive and mediocre.

Step 1) Get to cover.
2) Run ability use logic.
3) If enemies are not all dead, go to 2.

I see what you mean, but again I think it was because you were playing an adept which is pretty shit at shooting, isn't as tough as a Sentinel and doesn't have the distraction of the Engineer.

The shooting and cover system is much improved from the first and in many ways the global cooldown is an improvement to the micromanagement of the first game where you can have a power going off every half second or so throughout the fight which meant that more than half the fight was the power menu.

I've just started again from the beginning on Insanity as a Vanguard which is a completely different game requiring a lot more thought, tactical positioning, use of allies, and timing. I'd probably find playing as a Soldier or Infiltrator pretty boring but so far it's been exciting, with liberal use of making my allies flank or sacrificing them to take down bosses quickly.

Biotics not working when there is armour, shields or barriers makes it a lot more interesting since biotics don't autowin like in the first game but they do make the adept pretty shit. If only there was a happy compromise like biotics or tech having reduced effect or duration if there are defences.

Oh, and AI hacking only working if theres no armour or shields pisses me off like it did in the first game where theres no point in trying to use it.

[*]less pissing about with useless items ...

It would if there were any significant difference to the weapons aside from a damage increase. The whole problem with having so many weapons in the first game was that there was no differentiation to speak of. Every gun was defined solely by its damage per shot, accuracy, and heat tolerance. That (aside from the terrible interface) is what made fiddling around with the guns such a chore, 'cause there was nothing to it aside from "equip gun with biggest numbers hurrr."

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Are you talking about the sequel at all here?

Are you saying you'd rather have the first game's item system if it was made more interesting and actually worked? I'd have liked that too but I think this works very well too since there are still reasons to choose between the weapons based on your playing style. If you could have shotguns or sniper rifles that were excellent against different defences, e.g. choose between a shotgun that bypassed barriers and one that quickly devastates armour, then it would be even better.

I just wish it made the hack more interesting ...

These minigames were effing pointless. They should have dropped them entirely and simply had Shepard do a hacking/bypassing animation or something. They added nothing to the game.

And don't even get me started on the planet scanning.

Yeah, the planet scanning was terrible.

But I actually quite liked the hacking/bypass. Or at least the idea of some sort of skill based resource gathering more complex than simply rooting through every box you find along the way. Which is why I'd have preferred it actually challenging in some way.

Fanservicey females

Uuuurgh. I ignored the existence of Jack as much as possible and also used her alternte costume. She was a shit character in every way anyway.

I wanted for my character to be interested in one of the women, but Miranda is a bitch, Jack is an even bigger bitch who needs to put a fucking top on, and Tali is... well, I think I assumed I couldn't have a relationship with her since she's quarian and I don't want to kill her. And I felt really weird about having a relationship with Yeoman Chambers since it felt like taking advantage of my rank. As well as the lines being too cheesy.

Wilson motives

I just assumed that the Illusive Man wanted to field test you so gave Wilson the access to the robots to take over the station. It explains how Wilson could do it when he shouldn't have had access and fits in with the Illusive Man manipulating you, bugging everywhere and sending you in to the collector ship trap without warning and shit like that. As well as how Cerberus took the station back over very quickly.

Thinking about it, one thing I didn't like was that most of the characters were either unlikeable (Miranda for the most part, Jack, Grunt in comparison to Wrex) or had terrible things happen to them or their relatives (Jacob, Garrus getting his face half melted off, Tali's father). It's like they decided that this game has to be darker and have more angst. Seriously, just fuck off with that.

[TarkisFlux]

Are you saying you'd rather have the first game's item system if it was made more interesting and actually worked? I'd have liked that too but I think this works very well too since there are still reasons to choose between the weapons based on your playing style. If you could have shotguns or sniper rifles that were excellent against different defences, e.g. choose between a shotgun that bypassed barriers and one that quickly devastates armour, then it would be even better.

FYI: There is a sniper rifle that fires bursts and is better against shields than normal. It's preorder DLC though, and generally a crappy tradeoff (or so the wiki tells me). The internet also tells me that DLC is basically plug and play on the PC, so it will work with the PC version no matter how you acquire it.

[Crissa]

Kaelik: How interesting, that's almost exactly like WoW.

-Crissa

[Kaelik]

Kaelik: How interesting, that's almost exactly like WoW.

-Crissa

I would say the main difference is that Tanks can't actually tank worth shit in Dragon Age. You have to specifically root/CC them to not die all the time. And last I recalled, a long time ago, when we were still burning and not undead, the bosses were basically immune to status effects other than aggro, and tanks could seriously fucking sit there taking almost no damage, and a single (well played) healer could keep them up all night and day. Only actual issues were someone stupidly taking aggro, or needing more healers to heal everyone taking AoE or minion damage. (Or multi boss fights where you don't have enough tanks.)

[NineInchNall]

I see what you mean, but again I think it was because you were playing an adept which is pretty shit at shooting, isn't as tough as a Sentinel and doesn't have the distraction of the Engineer.

I freely admit the class choice had an impact. However, once I got Warp Ammo, weapon damage was not really an issue. The real point is that Shooting is not as interesting as Using A Power.

The shooting and cover system is much improved from the first

How? The only real improvement I could see was in the animations and sound effects. Other than that, you could take cover just as easily, use cover just as effectively, and blast the crap out of things more effectively in the first.

and in many ways the global cooldown is an improvement to the micromanagement of the first game where you can have a power going off every half second or so throughout the fight which meant that more than half the fight was the power menu.

Um. No. Several things to do > few things to do. Every time. A global cooldown encourages specialization in few things rather than having broad options. It's a necessary consequence. The only way to mitigate it is to have every possible ability be equally useful. The increasing costs for advancement only exacerbated this. For example:

Let's say you have two abilities roughly equivalent. One does full damage against shielded, half against armored; the other does full damage against armored, half against shielded. One is currently at level 2 and does 20 damage. One is currently at level 0 and thus unusable. You have 3 points to spend. You can increase the first skill to level 3 and have it do 30 (15) points of damage. On the other hand, you can increase the second skill to level 2 and have it do 20 (10) points of damage.

If you choose to put the points in the second skill, you're wasting points, 'cause enemies have more than 20 health.

I've just started again from the beginning on Insanity as a Vanguard which is a completely different game requiring a lot more thought, tactical positioning, use of allies, and timing. I'd probably find playing as a Soldier or Infiltrator pretty boring but so far it's been exciting, with liberal use of making my allies flank or sacrificing them to take down bosses quickly.

Have fun! No, really. If you enjoy the game, then you enjoy it, and more power to you. My brain, unfortunately, goes straight to numbers and optimization (explaining why I was a CompSci major) so the game does nothing but irk me.

In other words: to each his own.

Biotics not working when there is armour, shields or barriers makes it a lot more interesting since biotics don't autowin like in the first game but they do make the adept pretty shit. If only there was a happy compromise like biotics or tech having reduced effect or duration if there are defences.

Oh, and AI hacking only working if theres no armour or shields pisses me off like it did in the first game where theres no point in trying to use it.

The same reasoning that applies to AI hacking applies to biotics. All biotics except for Warp [Ammo] are negated by defenses, so most of the time you're like a blaster Sorcerer fighting spell immune enemies.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Are you talking about the sequel at all here?

Are you saying you'd rather have the first game's item system if it was made more interesting and actually worked? I'd have liked that too but I think this works very well too since there are still reasons to choose between the weapons based on your playing style. If you could have shotguns or sniper rifles that were excellent against different defences, e.g. choose between a shotgun that bypassed barriers and one that quickly devastates armour, then it would be even better.

The first game had many weapons from different manufacturers. So what if there wasn't any mechanical reason to use an Armageddon VII? Even if this was tedious to deal with due to the crap interface, it at least was interesting in a world building sort of way.

The second game doesn't even have that. All it has is AcquireSchematics->ScanPlanets->Profit.

That's boretacular.

Thinking about it, one thing I didn't like was that most of the characters were either unlikeable (Miranda for the most part, Jack, Grunt in comparison to Wrex) or had terrible things happen to them or their relatives (Jacob, Garrus getting his face half melted off, Tali's father). It's like they decided that this game has to be darker and have more angst. Seriously, just fuck off with that.

Mordin, Garrus, and Tali were the only characters I really cared about. Grunt was alright, I suppose, but he was certainly no Wrex.

Mordin? Best ever. Garrus's acquisition story? Fuckin' awesome.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Oh hey, another SA Dwarf Fortress LP.

http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Syrupleaf/

Have not started it yet. It will probably consume my day when I do.

==========================================

Also playing Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. It's a shoddy cash-in created by a different studio than the original games, but I am enjoying it. There are many minor complaints I could make, but I am actually enjoying it more than Assassin's Creed 2. And it's a borrowed game, rather than a rental, so I'm certainly getting better value.

==========================================

Finally, I found some decent freeware text adventures thanks to a random article on playthisthing: http://adamcadre.ac/if.html

[Parthenon]

Lots of stuff

You make a lot of sense. I agree the global cooldown makes you specialise into only one main power, but I still don't really like the idea of constantly using powers all the time like the last game had. Maybe increasing the cooldown time for each power slightly would mean you had to use your guns and had to focus more on timing but still had choice in powers.

I still think that defences shouldn't autowin against powers but instead reduce their effect, and that there should be three options for the AI for each character: don't use powers, use powers sporadically so that they do get used but with enough of a delay that you can pick and choose powers tactically, and instantly use powers as soon as they can.

In terms of items, I hadn't thought about it but I agree that the last game was better at differentiating the different manufacturers. However, the last game was actually worse at having actual choices in weapons: only the spectre weapons were worth using, whereas in this there are two or three choices for each weapon: a 100% to 200% increase in choices. But yeah, having a choice of three or four different manufacturers affecting effectiveness against different defences, having automatic overlapping ammo powers or much larger clips would make it more interesting.

And if Cerberus was willing to outfit you with ammunition and medigels at the beginning of each mission.

---

Anyone heard anything about the latest Aliens vs Predator? My brother's borrowing it from a friend but I'm not quite sure whether I want to play it.

I was reading the manual (another tiny black and white disappointment- I know they can't all be SimCity 2000s, but they're currently pretty shit) and I was groaning at the description for the xenomorphs: it starts off by calling you "Number Six" as a bad Prisoner reference and as if you weren't one of multiple interchangeable drones. And later on you're supposed to be destroying Royal Jelly which if I remember goes against all the expanded universe.

Hell, the fact that it tries to use words to describe the fluff for the xenomorph. It should be random squiggles, or be a completely blank page. Or even better, have scratch and sniff panels to show just how alien the xenomorph mentality and communication is.

[NineInchNall]

In terms of items, I hadn't thought about it but I agree that the last game was better at differentiating the different manufacturers. However, the last game was actually worse at having actual choices in weapons: only the spectre weapons were worth using, whereas in this there are two or three choices for each weapon: a 100% to 200% increase in choices. But yeah, having a choice of three or four different manufacturers affecting effectiveness against different defences, having automatic overlapping ammo powers or much larger clips would make it more interesting.

Except that there is still no difference between weapons aside from "this one has higher numbers hurr." You pick the biggest pistol you have, the biggest SMG, the biggest sniper rifle, and so on. There's seriously nothing interesting there, and the fact that they don't even bother to show you the numbers makes it even more irritating.

The only real weapon choices are in the heavy weapons, but once you get the Collector ray gun of murdering folks +5, you don't touch the others.


*grumble*

[Vnonymous]

I probably got a different experience than you because I played an Infiltrator, but the ability system in ME2 worked just fine for me. Juggling tactical cloak, incinerate and my bonus ability was actually fun and interesting.

The weapon system would have been fixed by scrapping all the upgrade shit. All of it. Its' basically just a "planet scanning tax" and didn't need to be in the game. Weapons should have had different properties, not necessarily better ones (although I can understand the idea of having a super powerful ultimate weapon).

I played through as an adept and got bored fucking shitless on a higher difficulty, though. The global cooldown was not a good idea for that class.

[NineInchNall]

I probably got a different experience than you because I played an Infiltrator, but the ability system in ME2 worked just fine for me. Juggling tactical cloak, incinerate and my bonus ability was actually fun and interesting.

Infiltrator is apparently the best class in the game.

The weapon system would have been fixed by scrapping all the upgrade shit. All of it. Its' basically just a "planet scanning tax" and didn't need to be in the game. Weapons should have had different properties, not necessarily better ones (although I can understand the idea of having a super powerful ultimate weapon).

Absolute truth.

I played through as an adept and got bored fucking shitless on a higher difficulty, though. The global cooldown was not a good idea for that class.

Thank you.

[Parthenon]

I disagree about the idea that there was only one choice for each weapon: for about half the game I was using the original 12 clip pistol rather than the more powerful 6 clip pistol since I preferred the feel of it: so is at least one other person I know. (I know this doesn't actually prove anything)

For the sniper rifle semi-auto can be very useful, with a higher DPS and much more ammo, so there is the choice of less frequent higher damage bursts or more and steadier damage (unless you unlock the special one which is more damage overall).

For the shotgun the claymore is hella powerful but you may prefer to use the fast firing shotgun, especially if you tend to get surrounded.

For the heavy weapons the collector ray gun is a bit shit really. Well, when I say that I mean that you are likely to waste a lot of ammo and the grenade launcher does a comparable amount of damage with more control, as well as being better against armour. Sort of like the semi auto sniper rifle vs the single shot one.

However, for the smg and assault rifle then yes, you find the one with the most damage and use that.

So, out of the six weapon choices, four of them have at least twice as much choice as the first game.

[cthulhu]

The collector ray gun is the best for the snipers once you get the upgraded sniper rifle, because the sniper rifle does way more damage to bosses than the heavy weapons on a pound for pound basis, and vs normal mooks the ray gun is awesome tastic.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Played something interesting and short recently:

http://armorgames.com/play/5355/immortall

Pretty simplistic both mechanically and thematically, but it works. I feel it is worth a couple minutes if you can play Flash games in your browser.

[NineInchNall]

Just got Final Fantasy XIII yesterday, and I can see why the FF fanatics are panning it: it's much more honest about its linearity than previous iterations. I mean, FF6 is a pretty damn linear game when you stop to think about it. The thing is, though, even the fact that you have to press the A button in order to talk to a town-patrolling NPC gives a minor illusion of player direction.

FFXIII doesn't have that. Instead of pressing a button to get a one liner from NPCs, you just walk up to them and listen. It's more fluid and natural, but it doesn't give the illusion of control to which JRPG fans are accustomed. At root it's the same thing, but the perception is different.

Instead of having a labyrinthine dungeon area that is filled with twisty turns, the dungeons are much less complex, sometimes amounting to straight hallways with side rooms of treasure holding. Again, though, for some reason that eludes me, simply adding a few mandatory turns along the path through the dungeon makes people feel like they have "freedom", despite the fact that they don't.

The new battle system is fun, but JRPG fans are used to a certain amount of micromanagement. The focus on quick battle completion coupled with the rapid filling and draining of gauges make manual entry and selection of abilities less efficient than using the Auto-Battle command, which is, I admit, somewhat disappointing. In a very real way the game plays itself.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Progress Quest 2: FF13?

[NineInchNall]

Pretty much. In this sequel to Progress Quest, you can choose the equipment, leveling order, and tactics for your character! *rolleyes*

Basically, the game reveals the Life On Rails linearity of the JRPG genre completely and mercilessly, which amuses me to no end.

[Avoraciopoctules]

How entertaining and/or mockable is the story so far? Any noteworthy characters?

[NineInchNall]

The story. Well, the story is kinda typical FF stuff so far: tyrannical government, special forces hunting you down, o-look-you-have-magic-when-no-one-else-does (Terra *cough*), ambiguous threat from largely unknown enemies (ff6 espers *cough*), and pacing as quick as molasses on a January morning.

Of the five main characters I've encountered so far:

• Hope is annoying and wangsty.
• Vanille is batshit insane and annoying. She also does voiceovers that are annoying. And I think that's a New Zealand accent creeping through there.
• Sazh is occasionally amusing and has a baby chocobo living in his afro.
• Snow is pretty cool. Some review sites will say, "o noes, he calls himself a hero every other sentence!" This is false and a lie. They should stop lying.
• Lightning is a badass. She's actually the most damaging head-on fighter you have. She's also terse and might be described as surly. She also tends to speak in an almost monotone, almost breathy voice.

So yeah, Sazh and Snow are the only halfway likable ones so far.

[Crissa]

JRPGs are a novel with some interaction as you read/watch them. They aren't free-form. Alas.

-Crissa

[NineInchNall]

Yeah, I know. It's like people have somehow done some self swindling and fooled themselves into believing that's not the case. This game embraces that truth, and people are getting pissed because it's revealing something that they didn't want to admit.

[Crissa]

You won't find that sort of complaint from fans in Asia, though.

-Crissa

[Gelare]

So I picked up the demo to Monster Hunter Tri the other day. I've never played any of the previous games in the series, and don't really have any idea what's going on here. I'm not sure what the game is supposed to be, although I have a lingering suspicion that, whatever it's supposed to be, it isn't. Can anyone enlighten me as to the virtues and vices of the Monster Hunter franchise?