Video Games

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:14 am

Parthenon wrote:I recently played through Armored Core 4, and while I didn't realise it at the time, it is amazingly easy. And the missions are tiny. As in kill 1-5 enemies. Occasionally you have to kill everything, but the major complications are enemies being able to shoot missiles at you from across the map or it being pitch black and enemies being able to shoot farther than you in the dark. Anyone else play it and get really upset at how short the missions are?

Picked it up used a couple weeks ago. I wasn't really upset at the mission lengths, but the story infuriates me. Almost nothing is clearly explained about the world you're in. Even reading the documentation, I can't find more than a few sentences describing such key concepts as the technology which turned the mechs you were piloting last game into mooks that you slaughter in groups now. When a corporation or faction is mentioned, it is assumed that you know all about it. There is no in-game encyclopedia, though you might be able to dig up a few nuggets of description if you go through arena mode.

The interface for purchasing new parts for your mech irritates me as well. And the fact that energy weapons have ammo limits. The combat itself isn't so bad, and I'll be doing less reloading of saved games with the new mission reward and death systems. The ability to sell parts back for full price is nice, since it makes it very hard to get stuck on a particular mission. I got tired of my energy weapon specialist after the eleventh time I ran out of ammo, so I swapped everything out for heavy ordnance. One grenade gun practically fills the screen with its blast even at medium range. That made a number of missions considerably easier.

All in all, I'm having less fun than I did with Armored Core 3, but it's not so bad that I intend to donate the game to my local library immediately. I'd probably trade it for a copy of Armored Core 3 pretty happily, though.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:15 pm

Anyone know of any decent mech sim games for PC that are remotely modern? I keep hearing about the latest and greatest mech sim that I should totally pick up and then finding out it's console only.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:08 pm

What gets me on the console only ones is that they're often all VS or one console per player and I'm totally not paying another thousand bucks for another console and television.

Oh, and you can't remap the keys to something reasonable. Ugh.

-Crissa

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 5:11 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If you can have two players keep the Spread Gun for a good period of time then you're money.

Well yeah, to win with only 3 lives you've got to be good at staying alive. So the side effect is that you keep your weapons and most of the time you'd both want spread guns. I do remember certain levels where different guns were preferable though.

Unfortunately, there's way too many cheap deaths that happen on two players due to how screen scroll works, so I don't know how you're going to pull that off.

It's been awhile since I did it, so I'm not sure exactly what special tactics we used. I know you had to be especially careful on some of the level that went upwards, but not sure on the other stuff. I can say it took lots and lots of practice.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:26 am

zeruslord wrote:Anyone know of any decent mech sim games for PC that are remotely modern? I keep hearing about the latest and greatest mech sim that I should totally pick up and then finding out it's console only.

Seconded. I haven't played a mech game since Mechwarrior 4 and that wasn't as good as Mechwarrior 3.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:36 pm

I wasn't really aware of videogames beyond Scarrytown, Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, and Spycraft, which I didn't get to play, when Mechwarrior 3 came out, so I haven't played anything that's solidly in the genre.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:24 pm

I've been playing Super Mario World again just for the fun of it--and you know, it's really surprising how good this game is, even today.

The cape and Blue Yoshi kind of sucks a lot of the fun out of the game, but there's an amazing amount of variety in the game. No wonder why there are so many ROMhacks of it.

I also really, really like SMW2: Yoshi's Island. Even more variety than the first game and the game is overall better paced. The graphical style is very amusing, too. The only manuever I don't really care for is the Baby Mario health meter. It's both annoying (THAT DAMN WAIL) and kind of unintuitive towards platform gaming.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:30 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Though like I said earlier, I don't like 'difficult' RPGs like Final Fantasy IV for the DS and nearly everything Atlus has ever made because difficulty in those games usually boils down to you having to grind a lot more or getting really lucky. I hate forced grinding and I hate being at the mercy of the RNG, so I guess that explains it.

I don't recall Final Fantasy IV for the DS being terribly difficult (with a couple specific exceptions) or doing any significant grinding. In fact, after beating the game, I decided to play a plus game with the "no random encounters ever" ability to see how far I could get fighting only bosses, and I got all the way to the Dark Elf without serious problems (of course, I had some powerful augments after beating the game once, but levels and equipment get reset).

On the general topic of game difficulty...

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 2:33 am

I can't tell you how many times I encountered two Blaze Beasts or Frost Beasts while I was scaling the Tower of Zot and I got insta-gibbed before I could even run. If you get ambushed by those things while you were just going through the game normally without too much grinding (I do a little bit of it when Cecil becomes a paladin) then you're screwed.

That's pretty much why I called the game cheap.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:31 am

zeruslord wrote:I wasn't really aware of videogames beyond Scarrytown, Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, and Spycraft, which I didn't get to play, when Mechwarrior 3 came out, so I haven't played anything that's solidly in the genre.

Play Mechcommander then, its a top down tactics game where you control a squad of mechwarrior's. One of my favourite games of all time.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:16 am

Yeah, MechCommander was awesome.

However, probably inaccessible since only the 'Gold' version is even playable, requiring a patch so as not to crash on some missions... And it didn't support alot of video cards at the time. I certainly don't have several computers that can run it on hand anymore. (There was even a class action settlement about the game being unplayable as sold)

Unlike Myth which has a community to support it with keeping the patches online... I wouldn't know where to find support for it.

-Crissa

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:53 am

Word on the street is that mech commander 1,2, and Gold have all been released for free and are available along with patches and junk around the place on the internet. Including possibly at Mechcommander.org, though I haven't checked their links.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:42 pm

Has anyone played Prototype yet?

All the gameplay videos I've seen strike me as similar to Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. It isn't surprising; both games were made by the same people and the nucleus of the idea for Prototype was, "Hey, the Hulk can weaponize anything. Why not have a guy who can weaponize himself?"

But I'm saving up for an Xbox 360 and I'll probably get the game when I get the system.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 1:40 am

Been playing Fallout 3 and Monster Rancher 2 lately. Good times.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 4:00 am

Got hold of Phantom Crash 2 the other day. It's really really pissing me off. The original was similarly irritating, but I just want to vent.

See, you start off with lots of monies. You then buy a mech which costs almost all of your monies. You then try to make more monies by doing an event. Since you aren't that good at the game and your mech sucks, you can only earn a small amount of money at a time.

However, if you die, you lose a lot more money than you have left over from the mech. Which means that if you die in the first 3 or 4 matches you are screwed because it costs money to enter and compete to make money and you have 0 monies.

The really irritating thing is that if you make a mistake or not notice an enemy you can die in less than 2 seconds. So, you can be doing really well and then suddenly get killed and have the whole day be an overall setback. Then if you want to reload and have another go it can take about 5-10 minutes to restart the event.

Each event can take abut 5-10 minutes to play out, and I spent about 6 hours today managing to go through two events that made a positive amount of money.

Urgh. This game could be so much more fun, but the precision required is pissing me off.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:06 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Word on the street is that mech commander 1,2, and Gold have all been released for free and are available along with patches and junk around the place on the internet. Including possibly at Mechcommander.org, though I haven't checked their links.

I got my MC2 from Mechcommander.org Not as good as the original though. I assume their MC1 download will work too.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:29 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I can't tell you how many times I encountered two Blaze Beasts or Frost Beasts while I was scaling the Tower of Zot and I got insta-gibbed before I could even run. If you get ambushed by those things while you were just going through the game normally without too much grinding (I do a little bit of it when Cecil becomes a paladin) then you're screwed.

That's pretty much why I called the game cheap.

I remember there being fire/ice dog-like enemies with an attack that hits the entire party for damage that would've been quite respectable if it only hit one target, and I remember needing to heal after every battle and occasionally run away, but I don't remember my party wiping in any dungeon more than...maybe once or twice? I suppose I could've been higher level than you; I didn't specifically do grinding*, but I explored areas thoroughly and rarely ran from random encounters. And I drank lots of healing potions.

* Except to get that @%@* rainbow pudding, which I didn't do until the very end of the game. Requiring an extraordinarily rare random drop for a mjor side quest was really a douche move on the developers' part.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:02 am

Still, it's not like they made TWO FUCKING CHARACTERS optional, one requiring a large series of puzzles and things (and a certain degree of luck in noticing the thing to begin with).

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:33 am

The spells the creatures in FF4 do are random.

You totally might play it and not meet the frost hound or the flame hounds and their blizzaga/firaga blast that does actually level the party. They might just attack you instead, doing piddly damage.

And if you choose the wrong characters for your party, you'd just plain die.

-Crissa

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 6:19 am

Crissa wrote: And if you choose the wrong characters for your party, you'd just plain die.

You get to choose characters for FF4?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 3:07 pm

In the Gameboy Advance remake, you can get the people from earlier--Cid, the twins, the bard...

Some of them still aren't that good, though.

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:59 pm

Crissa wrote:The spells the creatures in FF4 do are random.

You totally might play it and not meet the frost hound or the flame hounds and their blizzaga/firaga blast that does actually level the party. They might just attack you instead, doing piddly damage.

And if you choose the wrong characters for your party, you'd just plain die.

-Crissa

I'm suspicious that you're thinking of something entirely different. Yes, the monsters choose attacks at random and not all of them are equally powerful, but if you seriously think it's plausible that one person got repeatedly wiped out by pairs of monsters doing the attack in unison and another person explored the area thoroughly but never suffered the attack once, you must be thinking of a game that requires many fewer fights than FF4. I got hit with that attack many times, I just killed the monsters, got away, or healed before they hit me enough times in a single battle to wipe my party, except for maybe a couple times. Sure, if the RNG hates you enough, you're going to die, but I think that's true of every CRPG I've ever played, so...

And to my knowledge, only one of many remakes of FF4 allowed you any selection over your characters, that remake only let you choose characters long after the point in the game under discussion, and we were specifically talking about a different version with some significant differences, such as your party having access to many more abilities.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:54 pm

Look, I got iced three times in the upper level of the Tower of Zot before I managed to get to Cindy and Mindy and got smoked four times in the lower level of Tower of Zot and I still haven't managed to get to the cannon--before I discovered Henry Hatsworth.

I have never had my ass handed to me that thoroughly in a jRPG before. Apparently I need to either grind more (do I? I didn't have much trouble with Golbez or Calcabrina), the game is rigged, or I'm just extra unlucky.

Iron Mongler · Post by **Iron Mongler** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:03 am

I have never had my ass handed to me that thoroughly in a jRPG before. Apparently I need to either grind more (do I? I didn't have much trouble with Golbez or Calcabrina), the game is rigged, or I'm just extra unlucky.

You don't need to grind. Those monsters are only on the first few floors of the respective towers and are deceptively difficult compared to all the other enemies. You should just run from them unless you get advantage.

Keep in mind that the boss of the next dungeon is a real bitch though. :/

* Except to get that @%@* rainbow pudding, which I didn't do until the very end of the game. Requiring an extraordinarily rare random drop for a mjor side quest was really a douche move on the developers' part.

Don't remind me. Try getting more than one of those too, along with the optional summons for Rydia. It takes FOREVER.

As for some of the vidya I've been playing, I just finished Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne on hard mode getting the TDE. I hate random battles but overall it's not a bad game, enjoyed Persona 3 and 4 more though. Also going through Planescape: Torment, the CRPG with the easiest combat you'll ever see (great game though).

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:51 am

No, I totally walked through with min-level parties and some combos of monsters - which I may or may not see - could totally wipe the floor with me. And one monster would just kill me if I had the wrong armor selection and it chose a specific attack.

So it really was a crapshoot if I'd go through a section with or without dying. Sometimes I'd see the deadly monster, sometimes I wouldn't. Sometimes it would show up and do its blizzaga and kill me, sometimes it wouldn't and just bite me instead, stupidly.

So yeah, there are combos of monsters - Zot and temple of the father come to mind, as well as lower zot - with monsters which would kill me if I got them, and if I didn't get them, I'd pass without a combat going past the first round.

And I totally tried farming gear, and just gave up after killing 500 of the target critter.

-Crissa

PS, when I took on the four elementals at once, it took me awhile to find a guide where someone had actually detailed them, 'cause each of them (plus the core computer) had an attack that would one-shot four out of five members of my team.