Video Games

[Koumei]

And question their methodology as a means of increasing maturity.

They're not creating penis monsters as a way of increasing the maturity. They just... want to deprive kids of the game/want to cause trouble for the creators/like penises.

For the most part, I'm impressed with what I've seen, genitals aside. Although, several people have already made a Slowpoke each. I hope I needn't tell you why this is wrong.

[virgil]

In regards to Odin Sphere, which I started playing half a week ago, I downright hate Gwendolyn. She's lying, cheating, betraying, & sacrificing everything but her for an artificial love (that she knows is artificial).

[Koumei]

I just finished Gwendolyn's story arc yesterday, and I like and feel sorry for her. Sure, it's an artificial love, but it would feel just as strong to her, would it not?

Anyway, I don't like Cornelius so much. That's mostly just a case of him handling differently, however. The Sonic spin attack is a bit awkward, but probably good.

Oh, and the queen of the underworld is a right bitch. Hard to defeat (especially when you're recharging and the instant-death spider thing portals in), and... why is she a skeleton except for a face and massive breasts?

[Maxus]

Formaldehyde.

Really, though, the American version has an issue with slowdown. And Odette is the biggest example of it. Anyway, here's my strategy for dealing with her (Gwendolyn's actuall the best suited)

-Battle starts.
-I use Painkiller.
-Then I use the Psypher skill Overload to double my attack power.
-Then I use a Blizzard to tie up all of those little enemies she summons.
-Then I use Gwen's ultimate Psypher Skill, Shadow Ally (You have to have a level 35 Psypher)
-I will now be hitting the Queen multiple times for each button press, for double attack power, and basically be opening her up like a new Wal-Mart.

For the record, Gwen's the only one who gets Shadow Ally.

As for character analysis...Gwen, at first, is desparate for Odin's approval. Odin, for his part, is conflicted about whether he should be a good king or a good father. Gwen, though, is almost always trying to be a good daughter to earn her approval, except at the end, when she realizes what else she can have. She's a kind person (as Cornelius will find out) who pretty much thinks all about others.

Cornelius is pretty good. His Ninja Bunny Death Spiral attack is pretty nice for inflicting a lot of little hits on aerial opponents, and his double-jump can cover a lot of ground (although not as much as Gwen flying). It's also convenient in the fire kingdom--when you get set on fire, you can jump, do a double-jump, and you'll probably have covered enough ground to put out the fire in just a couple of seconds.

[Crissa]

My boss rated Age of Conan as boring, low frame-rate, and buggy.

...He's known as the guy who killed Vanguard and panned Warcraft as well (though his prediction of its success was opposite his personal opinion of the game).

-Crissa

[CatharzGodfoot]

... why is she a skeleton except for a face and massive breasts?

Although I've never seen the game, I'm guessing it's a retarded interpretation of descriptions of the goddess Hel (queen of the Norse underworld). She's supposed to be 'half woman, half skeleton'. It's never really clear whether it's the top half, bottom half, right half, left half, front half, back half, diagonal halves, or something more complex.

I'm guessing the game designers figured that her breasts are big enough that when you add her head, they account for half of her body.

[Koumei]

It's never really clear whether it's the top half, bottom half, right half, left half, front half, back half, diagonal halves, or something more complex.

How about "Inside half, outside half"? Wait, a human outside with a skeleton inside... never mind, I just described regular humans.

Most art I've seen did the left-right split, which has always been popular in fiction (two-face etc). But I completely forgot about that little detail of Hel, and considering this game takes random Norse things, skews them through a Japanese perspective (the way we do with all of their things - "ninjas: REAL ultimate power!") and lets them run loose...

I'm guessing the game designers figured that her breasts are big enough that when you add her head, they account for half of her body.

Those breasts ARE big enough that, when added to her head, they account for half her body. Seriously, we are talking massive wubbly jubblies. I might simply name her "Melony".

[Maxus]

Those breasts ARE big enough that, when added to her head, they account for half her body. Seriously, we are talking massive wubbly jubblies. I might simply name her "Melony".

I repeat the link. http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/os-odette.html

Seriously, Odette...er...Melony is one major necrobitch. Every single time she's encountered, she's all,

"How dare you trespass in my realm while still alive? How dare you keep talking while I'm threatening you with graphic stuff and arbitrarily deciding to kill you just because I'm an evil bitch.

I'm going to rouge my face with your blood/scrape out your bowels and fill them with embers/put your sexual organs on a spike/rip you open on top of a cliff, throw a loop of your guts around a tree stump, and then throw you over the edge.

....

Whoops. You win. Have it your way, go wherever you want. But you're not doing all the good you think you are.

[JonSetanta]

OK. The truth has been confirmed.

There it was, on the 50th or so post in a Spore thread on /tg/, mingled in with the (sometimes very well done) D&D monster imitations and shoddy WarHammer species.

Someone made a penis monster. And again, another, and again.
Strangely, it did not surprise me at all.
I'd post pics, but, you know.



On the matter of Hel being half-dead and half-living, in my imagination it comes out as a fluid state similar to Schrodinger's cat quantum theory.
While she would appear to be in flux between the two states, at any time she could focus the dead half to one portion (in, out, left, right, whatever) while the living half takes the other, much like how we can close one eye to lose our stereoscopic vision.

Hel might be able to pass off as a normal, living Jotun, or whatever Loki is. However, by doing so she would temporarily lose her command over undead, lich-like powers, or whatever.

All of Loki's children express some form of shapeshifting, the most famous being those 3: Hel, Fenrir/Fenris, and Jormungand.
They are corpse, wolf, and serpent, respectively.
So, just like Loki could assume many forms and at any time, perhaps Hel has a similar ability (even though her brothers prefer to stay as giant beasts either all the time or almost all the time)

[Koumei]

The one I always remember as being Loki's child is none other than Slepnir, Odin's steed.

That'll teach him.

Norse mythology: doing Mpreg thousands of years before Star Trek fanfiction.

[Maxus]

The one I always remember as being Loki's child is none other than Slepnir, Odin's steed.

That'll teach him.

Norse mythology: doing Mpreg thousands of years before Star Trek fanfiction.

SIGGING.

[JonSetanta]

Norse mythology: doing Mpreg thousands of years before Star Trek fanfiction.

They were pretty adventurous with the genderbending.
Remember the story wherein Loki convinces Thor to dress as a giant bride?
Loki must have been a damned good smoothtalker to do that.

Ah, Slepnir, the redheaded stepchild of Loki's kids. Ever wonder if he/she/it could shapechange too?

Also, in reading about Odin Sphere online yesterday it does look amazing (and Hel's boobs are indeed ridiculous), but is it for more than 1 player?

[Maxus]

No, it's single-player only.

[Maxus]

As a random note, I've spent several hours of the past few days playing Animal Crossing.

It's like crack, I swear...

[Jerry]

I'm currently playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

It's a very fun game, and I love the wide amount of side quests; it's enough to keep me occupied for a long time.

What do you guys think of it?

[Cielingcat]

Oblivion was fun until I got 100% Chameleon. Then that was fun for a while before being totally and permanently invisible became boring.

Then I lost the disc.


Me, I play World of Warcraft. A lot. I have a 70 Warlock and Priest and I'm working on a Rogue. It has been my goal to get into high end Arena stuff, but I haven't been able to find a worthwhile partner to actually do said stuff with.

[Jerry]

Oblivion was fun until I got 100% Chameleon. Then that was fun for a while before being totally and permanently invisible became boring.

Do the Oberoni Fallacy and claim that it's not broken if you mod it to your tastes.

[Koumei]

My dad played it, and enjoyed it, but I couldn't help but notice that a huge amount of riding through vast empty landscape was needed. That's a cunning way of claiming "60+ hours of gameplay".

In one quest, he had to get thrown in jail to talk to a guy. Except the guards liked him too much, so even punching them in the face wouldn't work.

[PhoneLobster]

My boss rated Age of Conan as boring, low frame-rate, and buggy.

OK, now I will have to say the combat system though far from what I'd like is infact engaging and interesting, or at least more so than the usual. Only just but just enough to pull me in and no other MMO has managed that.

But recent patches are changing my view of the buggy issue. (Frame rate seems to be improving a lot though).

See at first I was like, hey bugs, whatever, its a new release they seem to be right on top of it.

But more an more bugs are coming to light, half the class features either don't work or don't work as advertised, the game engine itself has become LESS stable for me (I never crashed out, now I do almost like clock work at about 5-6 map transitions).

And yet we seem to have patches with a vigorous focus on rebalancing currently functioning class abilities with actual fixes coming in at a slow enough rate that even if they do ever get it all fixed it will probably be too late for the community to remain intact.

The thing that finally pissed me off REAL bad?

They did some barbarian rebalancing. Apparently they have reduced damage on a certain set of abilities. Then not included that information in the patch notes.

The bit that pissed me off though? My barbarian lost several of the same abilities OUTRIGHT, not modded, just plain gone. And I don't know if its because the abilities have been reassigned to higher levels as an additional part of the change or if its a fricking insane bug, because the fucking changes are secret and not in the fucking patch notes.

They're beginning to lose me. Hard.

[virgil]

A friend of mine had been looking around to see if he should bother with Age of Conan, and from what he gathered, there have been nerfs to classes that are already soo weak that they won't be invited into groups and are being ganked by other players twenty levels lower than them.

[PhoneLobster]

Class balance to mobs seems actually pretty good both before and after patches, though there are some brief level ranges where it squews slightly and I have severe doubts about pre patch pole arm builds and assassins in general.

But the PVP balance may be fairly bad. I haven't got into the serious high levels so its mostly a mystery to me. But playing a low level melee type in a game where there are ranged attackers with rooting effects that will totally kick your ass before the first six second root expires if they can get a 2 or 3 level jump on you...

And yes one of the things that is apparently high priority is twiddling balance on things, including weakening some popular builds while other aspects of the same classes still just don't even seem to function outright or remain nowhere near competitive level.

[Maxus]

So, uh, anyone try anything new lately? I've resorted to playing Animal Crossing (a time-burner if there ever was one) because I've beaten the crap out of pretty much everything I own.

I'm thinking of shelling out for a DS. If I do, I'll probably go for FFTA2, but consider me open to suggestion and recommendation.

[Jerry]

My dad played it, and enjoyed it, but I couldn't help but notice that a huge amount of riding through vast empty landscape was needed. That's a cunning way of claiming "60+ hours of gameplay".

In one quest, he had to get thrown in jail to talk to a guy. Except the guards liked him too much, so even punching them in the face wouldn't work.

I just attacked a guard in another place that didn't like me so that I could get arrested.

That, or get arrested before the guards like me.

[Maxus]

So, Koumei, Virgileso, how are you two doing on Odin Sphere?

[Koumei]

Unfortunately, I'm lazy when it comes to playing video games, so I'm still only part way through chapter 2.

That being said, I'll probably continue it tonight.