Video Games

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 1:14 am

Yeah, that's the one - sorry, I'm at work so I didn't have Steam open to grab the exact name.

It plays like... well if you've played Cross-Edge, you've played Agarest, because CxE uses the Agarest system. On the map you wander from point to point along paths rather than free-roaming, and various events are there for you to activate - not just scheduled battles, but also little conversations. There are many conversations in fact, with dialogue branches, which is not revolutionary.

Combat is basically a dumbed-down Tactical thing, in that it uses a grid, but basically you can always use any attack on any single target (from what I've played on the PS3 anyway), but you set people up to provide cover bonuses and such to each other, and attacks do have AoEs listed so you can sometimes tag multiple enemies.

You're encouraged to collect basically every item ever and not just sell them off, because you can upgrade them and then fuse them into new unique gear via alchemy (hi, Atelier ____!) You can then also fuse individual ingredients into gear after creating it, to improve its stats.

Also the game is 25-50% dating sim, but (presumably) without hardcore sex scenes or anything. We're probably talking hamfisted Bioware style (or indeed "Japanese dating sim" style) mechanics here, as choosing different conversation options makes people like you more or less and eventually it results in ????? which determines the stats of the next generation of heroes.

So it's basically a tactical game. And an alchemy item-mixing game. And a dating sim.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:40 am

Huh. I think I read an LP of an old game along those lines a few years ago. Thanks for the info, Koumei.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:52 am

Speaking of steam games, I recently got some steam credit, and am unsure what to get with it. I was looking at a few games in particular, though, Evoland, and Wizardry 6, 7, and 8. Does anyone here have any experience with any of those titles and can tell me how good they are?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 4:02 am

Evoland is garbage. I was very disappointed with the second half of the commercial game, and the free online Flash version has all the cool stuff you'd run into early on.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:25 am

oh god, i forgot that civilization basically equals crack in digital form x.x

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 4:02 am

So Valve has announced that their new console will have a new controller with haptic feedback trackpads and a touchpad that will have its data duplicated on the screen.

I dunno how well it will work, but I want one to see.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:27 am

Evoland is, at most, a 2 hour game, and even that involves a fair amount of grinding. Spending any money (or even credit) on it would be a mistake.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:15 am

I'm sorry, what? Are you telling me that someone, and not just someone, but multiple people, saw that stupid add of a scantily clad cartoon girl front and center on a background of graphics that are obviously literally stolen from Age of Empires II, and they fucking spent even a single second actually clicking that link or playing that game?

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:38 am

Um, Kaelik, who/what are you responding to?

Also, given that I keep hearing more bad than good about it, I think I've effectively been warned away from Evoland. That said, i've still got about $22 of credit, and am unsure if I should get Wizardry 6-8, or if there are some other rpgs (especially ones where I can kick ass at magic) or adventure games I should spend the money on instead.

Any recommendations from the den?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:00 am

Archmage Joda wrote:Um, Kaelik, who/what are you responding to?

Anyone who plays Evoland.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 9:17 am

Kaelik wrote:
Archmage Joda wrote:Um, Kaelik, who/what are you responding to?
Anyone who plays Evoland.

I think you are confusing Evoland (indie RPG, gimmick is you play through art styles from different era's of RPG's in order) with Evony (a browser game I know nothing about except its hilarious advertising campaign, which starts as what you describe and over its lifetime progressively loses both clothing and any semblance of looking like an advertisement for a game and not porn).

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 2:27 pm

Apparently Evony is some sort of civ-style management game. I know this only because someone wrote an article about horribly sleazy advertisements.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Sep 28, 2013 5:09 pm

Evony has various clones which are barely even reskins, too (Evony in Rome, Evony in China, etc. etc.). It's a really terrible, pocket-gouging sort of civ-game and I'm pretty sure it makes most of its money from horny 13-year olds with their parents' credit cards hoping that if they conquer a few more cities they'll get to the part of the game with the titties in it.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:37 pm

I got Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines recently. I have two partial playthroughs, one as a diplomatic Toredor and one as a combat-monster Brujah with the self-imposed challenge of doing a fatal feeding (thus losing humanity) as soon as possible without a masquerade breach after getting down to 1 blood point, and also not using anything that would let me feed in front of witnesses without a breach.

The controls are kind of clunky, since I'm playing on a laptop touchpad and don't have a scroll wheel, so flipping between powers is difficult. My combat monster pretty much just shreds mortals unless they've got knives, since I soak 2 bashing after halving incoming bullet damage, and I have Celerity, Potence, and can blood-drain in combat, which also gives massive regeneration. Knives, however, will mess me up.

So far, there isn't as much freedom in resolving quests as I would like, although I think some major quests could theoretically be skipped with high lockpicking. However, it does fufill one of my personal criteria, which is making sure to be symmetric with alternatives; sometimes games make a point of putting diplomatic options everywhere and then have quests that cannot be resolved via gratuitous violence.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 10:51 pm

i am getting very agitated by the fact that there are no historical starting locations on earth in civ5 <.<

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:56 pm

Stahlseele wrote:i am getting very agitated by the fact that there are no historical starting locations on earth in civ5 <.<

Since the new expansion finally made the game, somewhat, playable (as long as you don't mind having pretty much 4 or less cities up until the industrial period

) I at one point kept restarting on the standard sized earth map.

I wanted to start in Africa, the Americas, or at a stretch Australia or Britain. At first I was convinced starting points were random because civilizations tended to turn up in weird places. However there is some weighting with certain civilizations starting near certain types of terrain, and that can put civilizations on certain continents.

Out of starting about a dozen civs I managed to land the Mayan's in South America, and the Egyptians in Egypt.... aaaand everyone else ever for some reason turned up in the middle of fucking China. I started like 10 different civs and ended up in fucking China EVERY damn time.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:26 am

yeah, that . .
half the time i end up in south america and half the time in geographically china . . only when i chose to play china as a civ, i don't start there mostly . .

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:08 pm

Is there anywhere I can still get the official TESIV add-ons?

Bethesda don't got 'em for the PC anymore (but they do still have them for the Xbox, which is fucking stupid), and I don't have the Steam version of Oblivion*.

*I got it from Direct2Drive (who, by the way, also don't have the add-ons anymore), which in of itself is a problem: People who get the game this way cannot, for some unknowable reason, download any of the latest official patches, which means I'm stuck forever with my v1.201.xx copy of Oblivion; Bethesda seems to favor only people who use Xbox or Steam, the exclusionary bastards.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 4:40 am

I bought Gunpoint on Steam earlier today. It's really excellent. Highly recommend it.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:17 pm

You might try registering your copy of Oblivion on Steam. I've never actually tried that before, but it might work.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 3:01 pm

My copy of Oblivion wasn't purchased or downloaded through Steam, so I don't know if I can do that.

Is are there any safe sites where I can download the add-ons illegally for free?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 3:14 pm

Steam lets you register non-steam games, although I don't know what that means in practical terms. Give it a shot.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:49 pm

At the bottom left of your library, there's an add a game button. Click it, then click activate your product and give them your Oblivion key. If it works (it probably won't), good for you you now have a steam copy of Oblivion.

Adding a non-steam game just puts a shortcut in your library that'll launch the game with the steam overlay, which is useless here.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:12 am

I've sunk about 80 hours into Dark Souls over the last month or two. I've been invaded twice since my last post on the subject (not counting NPCs) and invaded one other person. My Black Knight Sword +5 and I have just made it to the Painted World where I got murdered by harpies. Also, according to the wiki my favourite NPC died because I didn't pledge allegiance to a spider witch. Such is life in Lordran.

I started up a new file on Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but I haven't gotten very far because Dark Souls. Even with all the mindless sailing it's one of the best Legend of Zelda Games. The later games have been burdened with too much hand-holding. People still talk about how bad Navi was for nagging you all the time, but Skyward Sword would be at least ten times better if Fi didn't solve every puzzle for you and parrot the speech of every other NPC you meet.

Since Koumei mentioned it and it sounded interesting, I also pre-purchased Agarest. I might not get a chance to try it out this weekend, but I do own it.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 6:47 am

rampaging-poet wrote:I've sunk about 80 hours into Dark Souls over the last month or two. I've been invaded twice since my last post on the subject (not counting NPCs) and invaded one other person. My Black Knight Sword +5 and I have just made it to the Painted World where I got murdered by harpies. Also, according to the wiki my favourite NPC died because I didn't pledge allegiance to a spider witch. Such is life in Lordran.

BROTHER.

What platform and what level are you. Because if you're on the 360, I'll totally try to jump in there with you.

And we can be the Black Knight Sword Brothers.

My very first playthrough, it dropped from the first knight you see. I got used to that sword. My second playthrough, it took a while.

But when I got one, it was like the broadsword from Eternal Darkness--it was like taking the hand of a friend. The spacing, the reach, the moveset, they're hardwired into me.