Video Games

[Doom]

D2 was imitated many times, but if you're looking for 'another' one, you have to check out Titan Quest (and the expansion, Immortal Throne).

It's basically Diablo2, but set in an ancient Greece milieu (instead of fantasy Europe).

The most awesome highlight of the game is character development. There are 7 'main' classes (maybe it's 8, memory not so good), and you level them up via skill trees. Each class has multiple trees, with skills in the trees improvable, better skills restricted by level. You can easily create a viable character using just some of the class skills...or not using those skills at all, and using other class skills. Yes, there are some sucky skills, but it's nothing like Diablo where most classes seem to have like 1.5 useful skills, and everything goes into getting to and improving that one skill.

What sets TQ/IT apart from Diablo is your character gets to develop in TWO different classes. So, basically, you have 42 different class combos, an awful lot to experiment with.

So, you combine ranger/lighting, or dualwielder/fire, or nature/spirit, or a bunch of other possibilities. There's a guy in most towns that will let you re-write all your skills for an irrelevant fee, although you can't change classes.

The inventory system is great, at least if you have Immortal Throne. Your character can carry plenty, can carry plenty more in his stash, and a 'caravan master' will keep a general pool of items available to all your characters. I don't have ANY mules, just characters with stuff they can use, stuff they have used, or stuff they intend to use.

There's also several tiers and types of crafting; eventually you can assemble some very nice relics (generally takes two playthroughs to get enough to build anything useful, though).

The point of all this is Titan Quest is the only Diablo-clone I've seen (and I've seen most) that really improves the genre. It doesn't have Battlenet (the secret to D2's success, but TQ does have online play, fwiw), but otherwise handles everything as good as, if not better, than D2 ever did.

There are also some mods that are like total rewrites of the skill trees/mastery system, and some of those mods are true labors of love.

Anyway, TQ/IT is the best Diablo clone around. A not very close second is Dungeon Siege, a railroad hackfest that is not without its charms. I could talk about that one, but, really, TQ/IT is the best. It would have knocked D2 out of contention for best 'action rpg', but MMOs really nuked the genre, making being the best in that category not very meaningful.

[Blicero]

The Dark Alliance games also aren't that bad (although they are kinda old).

They're "D&D" games in name only, and their weird devotion to the p&p rules ends up making the videogame rules unnecessarily clumsy at times (for example, weapon damage scales really quickly like in Diablo, but ability scores only increase every 4th level and have the same bonuses that they have in normal D&D: end result, they're pretty much useless). But they're not bad for some decent dungeon-crawling, especially in co-op.

[Avoraciopoctules]

[*]Neverwinter Nights: Honestly, just felt like a more graphical version of Diablo to me with quasi-D&D rules. It sorta lost me the moment I had to fight a dude in the sewer with over 100 hp, when I was just 2nd level. At that point it ceased being D&D and just became a Diablo clone.

Just out of curiosity, did you try any of the user-made modules or other content? The original campaign was terrible, and I didn't much like any of the official campaigns in the expansion packs, but there's some really great stuff out there if you look in the right places. And most of it is free.

Also, I really liked NWN once I started blatantly cheating (Wizards with INT at 90, other stats at 30, and 2-3 levels higher than PCs should be, multiclassed with Fighter and maybe Barbarian or Monk for increased running speed).

[Jilocasin]

[*]Neverwinter Nights: Honestly, just felt like a more graphical version of Diablo to me with quasi-D&D rules. It sorta lost me the moment I had to fight a dude in the sewer with over 100 hp, when I was just 2nd level. At that point it ceased being D&D and just became a Diablo clone.

Just out of curiosity, did you try any of the user-made modules or other content? The original campaign was terrible, and I didn't much like any of the official campaigns in the expansion packs, but there's some really great stuff out there if you look in the right places. And most of it is free.

Also, I really liked NWN once I started blatantly cheating (Wizards with INT at 90, other stats at 30, and 2-3 levels higher than PCs should be, multiclassed with Fighter and maybe Barbarian or Monk for increased running speed).

Pretty much. Also if you can get the PRC pack to work with modules you want to play without them crashing it makes the whole experience about fifty times better.

[Manxome]

I am unable to find my previous rant on Titan Quest, but either the documentation is a complete work of fiction or the game mechanics are totally batshit insane. They print statistics on your character summary that have no relevance to actual gameplay, having higher armor can in some cases cause you to take more damage than you would otherwise, things written as flat bonuses to mana regeneration are really proportional bonuses and vice versa, their attribute system is inconsistent and unintuitive (I seem to recall things like dexterity being required for ranged weapons, but providing a bonus to accuracy, which for some reason only affected melee attacks) and I don't even remember what else. It was a giant clusterfuck.

I also know, because I was playing a minion master build, that they did the same thing as Diablo 2 where boss monsters get giant, arbitrary bonuses against summoned minions for no reason. The act 1 boss had an ability that caused my minions to attack me instead of him. Try to justify that, I dare you.

And your comment about skill access being level-based is misleading, IIRC. As I recall, in order to open up the next tier of skills, you needed to dump a bunch of skill points into some sort of generic "mastery" skill that just gives you bigger numbers. Several levels worth of skill points. Which means you have to put your skill development on hold for several levels if you ever want to see new skills, and there's a skill point tax for diversity, and you're still encouraged to avoid spending any skill points at all on low-level skills if you want to max out the higher level ones (retrainer mitigates this, but doesn't eliminate it).

I really can't recommend it under any circumstances.


You could play Guild Wars; it's not a blind click-fest, but it's got fast-paced multi-player combat, customizable and levelable characters, and loot drops. It also has dual-classing (with eventual option to change your secondary class), an enormous list of useful skills with legitimate tactical differences, 100% free redistribution of attribute points in any town in the world, and no subscription-based fees.

[RandomCasualty2]

Just out of curiosity, did you try any of the user-made modules or other content? The original campaign was terrible, and I didn't much like any of the official campaigns in the expansion packs, but there's some really great stuff out there if you look in the right places. And most of it is free.

Also, I really liked NWN once I started blatantly cheating (Wizards with INT at 90, other stats at 30, and 2-3 levels higher than PCs should be, multiclassed with Fighter and maybe Barbarian or Monk for increased running speed).

I tried a few user-made modules. They were pretty dull. It wasn't really so much the bad story, but just the whole pacing and format of the game which generally threw me off. It was just "you run around and hack stuff."

The combats weren't tactical or interesting in the slightest. It just felt like a sustained DPS fest, only you died a lot quicker than in Diablo and in general it just felt like an inferior diablo clone.

I can't bring myself to cheat at games like that. At that point, beating the game loses any accomplishment feel for me, and I get no fun out of it once I start cheating. Shooting helpless enemies isn't my style.

[Crissa]

Dark Alliance plays okay, but it has random drops like in Diablo, so while it isn't interesting enough for a play-through, the gem-things you get are totally random per play-through and might not even help the character you chose.

-Crissa

[Maxus]

The first Dark Alliance's first act had my hopes up so much.

The first act had me going. People to talk to, sidequests, nooks and crannies to poke into...

Then the second act, you have several dwarves, only a couple of which do anything. Everything else is safe to kill.

And in the 3rd act, you have a lizardman who will send you on quests and sell things to you, but is also a villain, handily combining all essential NPC roles into one character sprite who stays in the same spot.

[Doom]

I admit, most minions are useless, much like in Diablo, but I get the feeling you haven't played TQ in many, many, patches. Most of the stuff you've complained about was fixed.

Yes, you have put to 'skill point' into your class levels to get the higher level skills accessible...but it's necessary because those higher level skills would completely dominate if you got them ten levels earlier.

You could always just, you know, spend the skill points until you've got enough to invest them in your class levels high enough, then go to the retrainer to get the skill points back, so it's not like you're really being 'held back' or need to save the points, anyway.

That way, you can have the fun of all those 'low level skills', and munchkin out on the maxiskills, too. By design.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Has anyone played Red Steel 2 and is willing to share their opinions? Yahtzee's review made it look like something I'd like to play.

I'd rent it, but I don't own a Wii Motion Plus.

[Jilocasin]

Red Steel 2 is actually quite fun. The Wii Motion Plus does make a difference, but not quite as much as I was hoping for. It does allow for the sword to track some more subtle angles. The game itself, in style and to a lesser extent gameplay, is fairly reminiscent of Borderlands. Just, y'know, with swords. There are a bunch of techniques that you can learn and I haven't had any problem pulling them off.

I'm not that far yet, but so far the story is fine. Not some tour de force, but enough to hold my attention. The first real boss was difficult enough that I died a couple times, but you get to start over from just before so that's a point in it's favor if you ask me. All in all, one of the more worthwhile games on the Wii.

And I haven't bought it yet, but Monster Hunters Tri looks awesome.

[Blicero]

I realize I'm a bit late playing it, but I finally started to play System Shock 2. I've had it for a couple of years, but I couldn't get it to run on my computer the first time; I was now.

I'm playing with the SHTUP and Rebirth mods, because I don't want to go blind from nasty polygon counts.

Honestly, I like it a lot. I've always enjoyed horror experiences, but I've never really been scared by them. Killer 7 disturbed the hell out of me, but it still wasn't really scary.

But, because of the atmosphere and dialogue and all that, I think I might be able to call SS2 legitimately frightening, which makes me quite happy.

[PhoneLobster]

System shock 2 lost me when all my save games corrupted on the final level and lost all my weapons.

Most of them were all on the final level where there were no actual weapon lying around all I could do was run around and pick up ammo.

Or I could go back to a save half way through the game and start from there (if I could find a weapon)...

Or start again without killing the end boss, just you know, going and waving at it and dying...

[Crissa]

That's pretty horrific, PL.

-Crissa

[TOZ]

I'd say frustrating, not horrific. If you lose a good games save data, that just means you get to play it over again, like I had to do with Timesplitters: Future Perfect. And if it's a bad game, why do you care about the save data anyway?

[Crissa]

Well, I lost my FFCC Ring of Time DS with a second playthrough almost complete in it. We're talking hundreds of play hours - it was fun, but... It's $40 and hundreds of more hours!

So much for finding out what everyone looks like in animal outfits. Or having my unlocked Lock's Quest stolen in the airplane. Or...

Yeah, it is frustrating. However, with a horror game, I thought you might like the pun.

-Crissa

[cthulhu]

Just use a cheat code and re-add your weapons via the console.

SS2 is a pretty buggy game.

Anyway, if you want a massive laugh, complete it singleplayer then get a bunch of mates together and do MULTIPLAYER and prefer for a laugh and a half.

[TOZ]

Yeah, it is frustrating. However, with a horror game, I thought you might like the pun.

-Crissa

.....A-HA! I get it now! Silly puns...

[PhoneLobster]

Just use a cheat code and re-add your weapons via the console.

These days I would. Back in 1999 I'm not sure I was even on the internet.

Rural Australia remember?

[Cynic]

It's been a while since i found an enjoyable flash game.

But Super mario Crossover is awesome. take a handful of the ssb characters and throw them into super mario 1 as playable characters.

http://www.playedonline.com/game/598161 ... sover.html

[Gelare]

But Super mario Crossover is awesome. take a handful of the ssb characters and throw them into super mario 1 as playable characters.

http://www.playedonline.com/game/598161 ... sover.html

That's pretty sweet. Although only half of the characters are from Super Smash Bros. But definitely sweet. I laughed when Link got a fire flower and started shooting out sword beams.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The flash game is awesome, but I have never been able to play platformers on a keyboard, I don't have the muscle memory. I wonder if I can get a cheap USB controller?

[Avoraciopoctules]

I found a pretty interesting Flash game on PIGscene. Vaguely reminiscent of the original Legend of Zelda in some respects. I caved in and got some spoilers after the first few playthroughs, and I am distinctly tempted to try a Hard playthrough until I get the third ending.

http://twofoldsecret.com/games/whereweremain/

http://www.pigscene.com/?p=442

[Utterfail]

I've gotta say, the wind-monsters in that are a fair deal more frightening than most of the stuff in many "horror" games.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I just learned about a 6-for-1 pay-what-you want sale on some indie games I have been very interested in for a few years now. Mac, Windows, and Linux versions are available. It's one of those times I really regret deciding to stay away from e-commerce. I am going to talk to my sister and see if she would be willing to serve as a middleman.

http://www.wolfire.com/humble