The Gaming Den

I played Paper Mario: TTYD for the first time in who knows how long and I forgot how good this game was. The game is pretty much perfection in every aspect I can think of. Paper Mario 64 and Super Paper Mario (haven't played Sticker Star) are still pretty good but TTYD is amazing.

It is.

I was surprised by Brutal Legend being better than I thought. It doesn't take itself seriously, which means I can forgive its sins. Whereas if you're going to talk your shit up like you're epic, you'd better deliver.

I think Brutal Legend's quality really dropped off after the first third or half or so. The first few RTS battles were pretty cool, but then they kind of stopped having new ideas, and they stopped having any hack-and-slash levels, and the writing quality got a lot worse IMO (abandoning what's-her-head was just fucking stupid), and it felt like they never finished making at least half the game. But it did have an absolutely incredible start, which means I'm still pretty affectionate toward it.

Syndicate 2012 was a lot better than I thought it'd be. I never played the original, and in fact hadn't even heard of it until people got mad about the FPS. But a lot of reviews I saw said that even as an FPS, it wasn't that great. But it actually was pretty solid, with some cool visuals and a bunch of cool weapons and some fun "always doing something" hacking powers. I actually don't really think there are enough futuristic sci fi shooters around, so I was glad to play a decent-to-cool one.

Katawa Shoujo.

Expected shitty anime porn. Didn't expect to feel!

Epic Battle Fantasy 3 and 4. After playing a bunch of other freeware RPGs, especially jRPGs, it gave me an appreciation on just how hard it is to get things working just right. Even otherwise good RPGs like Crystal Story II or Legends of Arkandia have some quirks and weirdnesses to them that EBF2 seems to effortlessly avoid.

Also, I really like the artwork in the game and the humor. If the designer wanted to, he probably could've made some serious money selling the app on Nintendo eShop or Steam or whatever. Very polished two games, highly recommend.

Bastion. Can't remember if I bought it on the cheap or if it was gifted, but I decided to "give it a try" on someone's recommendation.

It's really an awesome game. I like the way they tell the story through it (a flavourful voiceover as you do things, rather than cutscenes), the gameplay is good, finding new toys and tricks is always fun... great game.

The original Paper Mario 64 really blew my mind. I wasn't sure how exactly a Mario RPG would work, and was expecting a typical JRPG with Mario characters. Instead there was a unique aesthetic (3D world with 2D characters who are actually completely flat), few but salient and intuitive stats, overworld attack options, timing based gameplay, a story which is more than 'Save the princess', interesting characters, random humor, cool abilities, etc. Planning on playing Thousand Year Door as soon as possible.

Bastion was pretty awesome. There's a large degree of ability and weapon customization available. You can respec your character after each level, and try out builds in the repeatable Dream Sequence arenas where you fight tons of monsters. It's tons of fun to find your favorite builds via experimentation. And the voiceover was neat. The narrator also comments on stuff you do that has nothing to do with the story, e.g. if you fall off side of the level, break things for no reason, etc. He even has a line for every weapon selection combo you can choose.

There were two DragonBallZ games on the GBA (Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu's Fury based on the Anrdoid Saga and the Buu Saga) that I was surprised to end up liking. The game is top down view and you can only fly at designated locations. The combat wasn't much fun and energy attacks seemed kinda weak for how much energy they consume. However, the games managed to convey the story of the DBZ games very well in a short time, showed you more of the DBZ world, had cameos from long forgotten characters as friendly or villainous NPCs (along with short descriptions of them if you scan them with the scouter), and managed to squeeze in parts of the movies that didn't fit into the canon anywhere and had some good music. Basically, I could tell that the people making it were really into the franchise.

"Brutal Doom"

Yoshi's Island, watching someone else play it, gave me appreciation for its level structure, and simple, yet effective Tutorial it kinda gives as it goes along. Course, this is nothing new, and been covered by Egoraptor wither MMX, or Castlevania, but all the same. Plus, I realize I don't think I've ever seen any of the secret levels past the first world unfortunately.

God i love Paper Mario: TTYD. I started another playthrough a while back, and remember why I loved this game. Fun mechanics. Loved the audience during battles. The dialog is funny and entertaining, and the characters are interesting. The plot was deep and had some hidden backstory if you were interested in finding out about it. I can't recommend this game enough.

Lords of the Realm 2 is far from a perfect game and in many respects isn't even a good game. The country management minigame is a bit too simplistic, there's not a lot to battles, the CPU allies are too flawed, and winning the endgame is too tedious on most maps.

Nonetheless, it has this sort of charm to it that I can't put my hands on.

The Darkness 1 and 2 have sort of exceeded my expectations.

The first was a lot of half-assed-jogging around, and felt like two separate games--one in which you're a mafia guy and one in which you're trying to fight the Darkness for control. Despite that, I like a lot of the side characters. The old-school mafia crowd are pretty cool and the conversations you can overhear between thugs are cool. and the overall plot isn't that bad.

Besides. You can also watch the entirety of To Kill A Mockingbird and Man With a Golden Arm in-game, on TVs you can find around.

The first game, you're also apparently playing as Ozzy Osbourne before the drugs and hard living dried him out.

And in the second game, Jackie has gotten a haircut and been eating better and working out and he's now the dude on the cover of romance novels.

You know, I like playing the Miles Edgeworth games (well, I was more reading a Let's Play of the second one) a lot more than any of the main series Ace Attorneys.

Having Miles be your avatar makes me feel a lot more competent and badass than when Phoenix or Apollo is your avatar. Partly it's because his cases have more import than Phoenix's, partly because his method of investigation is more organized, but it's also because he's less likely to put up with stupidity and is extremely good at cutting people down to size when he's on a roll. Then again, I also like how Miles is able to just barge into conspiracies and contemptuously unravel them with just a few piercing insights.

Deus Ex: Invisible War. After reading so many bad reviews, I wasn't expecting much...

I think it's one of the video games I have the best memories of. The story wasn't very interesting, but the settings were nice, and the action was excellent.

I got Deus Ex: Human Revolution a few months back. I initially was wary, given all the reviews from here and elsewhere... I thought it was good, but not amazing initially.

The Director's Cut changed that, though. DE:HR's Director's cut is great and now allows for alternative ways to take down bosses using the environment and stuff. I've played the game 3 times now, and it's now one of my favourite games I've played. I just wish they'd made more DLC; extra sidequests or maybe a HL2 episodic series of episodes. So much to do in a setting like that before it messes with the original games.

Does the Director's cut change anything else than the boss fights?

Has the Missing Link seamlessly merged into it, the bonus DLC weapons are spread organically around the game, the game is massively discounted if you already own the games.... Fuck it, I'll just link:
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questio ... ectors-cut

Zeno Clash. The world imagining and art are really fantastic, even if the gameplay becomes a little trite towards the end. Still haven't played the sequel though.

The PC version of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that I got on a bootlegged cd as a kid. It's a solid platformer with great music (and one extremely irritating section that's impossible to pass without a walkthrough), but there was one feature that I really enjoyed. There was an option to play as Sonic and Tails, where you control Sonic, and Tails follows you around. The camera focuses on Sonic, but Tails always comes back if he gets lost or dies. I found out that Tails can be taken over and controlled by a second player (it reverts to AI without input for a minute or two). Since I was on a keyboard, I tried controlling both Sonic and Tails with one hand each and it worked extremely well. I only had to focus on keeping Sonic alive (as Tails has unlimited health and lives and can fly). Controlling two characters simultaneously in a platformer was awesome, especially when I managed to successfully synchronize the actions of the two.

The Saboteur. Besides some people commenting the art style (black&white in occupied areas, color in freed areas), I hadn't read/heard much about the game, so I thought that it turned out to be bad or uninteresting.

I bought it for next to nothing during a sale, and I was pleasantly surprised. It's pretty clear that the game was supposed to have more main missions (the story moves a bit strangely, some plot elements are introduced but never dealt with, some areas are clearly set up for a mission, but there's no mission there, etc.), but it's still pretty solid and I had fun playing it.

Neverwinter. Because it's free (and microtransactions are just if you're impatient - so many currencies in this, it actually is like D&D), I decided to tjeck it out and reserve the right to decide it's shit.

I've played for ~20 hours total and thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't fully gotten into the whole thing in the way you're supposed to with MMOs (oh hey look at that, 4E does get a vidya game and it's an MMO, news at seven). There's a lot of stuff designed to alter your behaviour and get you hooked, so I don't pay much attention to those things. I'm just in it for the game itself - and the Foundry. You can make your own quests (complete with your own maps, NPCs and such), and if it's good enough, it can be added to the Daily Foundry so others can play it and enjoy it. I've already played one where you join someone's tabletop RPG to play Call of Cthulhu. And another where you get to be the villain.

Note that this means you actually have more to do, and a bigger impact on the world, than in actual 4th Edition.

Incidentally the races are Dorf, Human, Half-Orc, Half-Elf, Half-Ling, Tief-Ling, Wood Elf, High Elf (Sun, and you get Moon if you buy an expansion), and Drow (with a slight variant if you buy an expansion). Not appearing: Gnomes, Dragontits, The Fey-Elves from 4E. Still, we're talking 4 (or indeed 6) types of Elf. The classes are Laser Cleric, 2-Hand Fighter, Defender Fighter, Ranged Ranger, Trickster Rogue and Ice/Control Wizard. Not featured: Paladins, Bards, Monks, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Barbarians...

If you're not susceptible to game addiction and know what to look out for, I recommend giving it a shot. Have a romp, then have no regrets when you get bored and uninstall it.

radthemad4 wrote:(and one extremely irritating section that's impossible to pass without a walkthrough)

I couldn't beat Sonic 3 with Knuckles, and couldn't beat S&K with Sonic, so what was that impossible bit? I can't remember if I had a walkthrough or really much about it. Something something mecha-Sonic, fire-and-ice caves, sand-filling pyramids, something meteor field, underwater level, anti-grav boss something...

I think he's talking about the barrel.

Surgo wrote:I think he's talking about the barrel.

Yep

Carnival Night Zone Act 2, but only on the Sonic and/or Tails route (henceforth I'll just refer to Sonic and/or Tails as just Sonic). Thankfully Knuckles never faced the damn thing so I could finish the game as him before I learned that the Internet can help with stuff like this (you're supposed to repeatedly press Up and Down, which doesn't even change your sprite while on the thing so even if you happen to press either once or twice you probably won't notice). If you don't know the trick you're doomed to just wait until the timer runs out, as it's the only way to progress in that level.

Koumei wrote:I couldn't beat Sonic 3 with Knuckles, and couldn't beat S&K with Sonic, so what was that impossible bit? I can't remember if I had a walkthrough or really much about it. Something something mecha-Sonic, fire-and-ice caves, sand-filling pyramids, something meteor field, underwater level, anti-grav boss something...

Mecha Sonic is Knuckles' final boss and Sonic's second last boss in Sonic and Knuckles. The ice and underwater levels were in 3, the rest were in & Knuckles (the meteor field was the last level of Sonic (3) & Knuckles if you got all the emeralds and became a Super Saiyan Sonic (Super Tails gets the same ending but skips the level for some reason).

Sonic 3 is definitely harder with Knuckles. The bosses get some buffs and some of the Knuckles paths are harder than their Sonic equivalents. The anti grav is the last level in & Knuckles for Sonic, so you came pretty close to finishing the game.

Also, I enjoyed that game a hell of a lot more when I learned the cheat to restart the game anytime (while preserving your Emeralds) and access the 'sound test' menu (which let you start from any level). I was able to use it to get all the emeralds and actually unlock super modes, which I could never do without cheats. I found the super mode interesting in that you need rings to sustain it and at least 50 to activate it, so you'd only want it for some circumstances like bosses. Also, the super speed was a disadvantage for many levels as it reduced precision. Super Tails and Knuckles were less interesting in that they were functionally identical to their normal selves but just invincible and doing collision damage to enemies.

Oh right. I think I had a magazine with a vague guide to it, otherwise I just fluked it or something. I can't really remember.

With Knuckles I got as far as the Egg Zone (final stage) of S3, but didn't have the timing/coordination to beat the sub-boss (which was "the same as Sonic gets, except two of them). With Sonic, I once managed to get up to the anti-grav boss (but couldn't beat it), but generally couldn't beat that level, just the see-sawing platforms would get me :/

I spent a lot of my formative years playing Sonic and remember how I figured out the barrels--I noticed they bobbed when I landed on them, so I ending up jumping and landing and so on.

Likewise, I didn't have problems with a lot of the bosses UP UNTIL the Death Egg at the end of Sonic & Knuckles--both the mini-boss (with the exploding spikes) and the Giant Egg Walker with the laster power by the master emerald...