Video Games

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:03 am

Cynic wrote:Yuffie annoyed the crap out of me.

It took a long time for me to forgive her for stealing my materia and forcing me to fight a boss with no magic. Playing Ehrgeiz helped a lot, as you can fight her to your heart's content.

As for Diablo, I found the Rogue to be the easiest, due to archery+grating, being combat-capable, and having the ability to use scrolls of Apocalypse to clear minions. As well as the spell that summons dragon heads, that's quite handy, as well as Mana Shield.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:08 am

I once tried to play Ehrgeiz but I didn't know what a mod chip was at that time so I just sold it for a nice profit of 4$.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:42 am

I tried playing the original diablo a coupla times (as both warrior and sorcerer) but never really got into it. The sequel (which I've played exhaustively, though always offline) just seemed so much better.

After finishing KotOR II (which, in spite of the really slow opening, still managed to become an excellent piece of sf storytelling that happened to have shitey combat and inventory management) I'm currently playing Mass Effect (1).

I just gritted my teeth and did pretty much all of the side quests at once, which was boring. Now I'm doing the actual plot missions, and, so far at least (I just finished Virmire (?)), they're really entertaining. (although noveria has definitely been the weakest one so far) It might just be that because my only experience with shooters older than Half-Life 2 comes from bits and pieces of Rainbow Six Vegas (2 I think) played multiplayer at a friend's house, I am simply unaware of how entertaining "real" tactical shooters can be, but in any case I think the combat is pretty fun. The story, although kinda generic at first, is also pretty enticing by now.

The main problems I'm having with it are:

1) Doing anything other than driving in a straight line is literally painful. I've only died three times in the Mako, and all of them were from accidentally driving off the "allowed space" because of the shitty steering.

2) Leveling up does nothing but increase your numbers unless you happen to be a Biotic. Getting new weapons or upgrades or abilities increases your numbers. Because the game has to be beatable by hardcore RPGers who complete everything and casual shooter fans who don't, the enemies' numbers scale with your numbers. Therefore, leveling up is essentially useless.

3) The party members are not Bioware's best. Wrex, Liara, and Garrus are all interesting enough. But Ashley and Kaidan are both boring as fuck. And I have felt no desire to even talk to Tali. All of this could have been mitigated by having more dialogue and banters between them, but Bioware was evidently spending too much time thinking up generic side quests to write banters that actually bring the companions to life.

4) The side quests are shit. Every one of them involves going to a system, finding the planet that you're allowed to drive on, and then finding either the warehouse, science facility or mine and killing everything inside.

5) The game suffers from massive inventory bloat, argurably the worst I've seen in one of Bioware's games. You're constantly picking up items that are either minutely better or minutely worse than what you already have. And there's no rhyme or reason to where you find what you find. I found three sets of Colossus VIII Armor in some random container in the middle of nowhere. Why was it there? Why hadn't its dead owners worn it in order to not die? And both money and omnigel, despite being rare initially (I remember being outraged upon noticing that I would get like 4 credits for selling an assault rifle when the new one cost like 2400) quickly become totally irrelevant.

But, in spite of all these flaws, I'm still totally hooked. It really is a testament to Bioware's skill as a designer that they managed to make yet another fun game. And I know that I'm going to get the sequel probably within a week or two of finishing this one.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:09 am

Blicero wrote:I tried playing the original diablo a coupla times (as both warrior and sorcerer) but never really got into it. The sequel (which I've played exhaustively, though always offline) just seemed so much better.

Wow. Diablo 2 rates in my five most hated vidya games.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:16 am

Koumei wrote: Wow. Diablo 2 rates in my five most hated vidya games.

In all honesty, I don't really know why Diablo II was so much fun, but it was. I've beaten the game twice as an assassin, twice as a sorceress, once as a barbarian, and once as a necromancer. And while the graphics blow and the fighting is repetitive, it's just the whole increased incentive thing. You stab something and find a slightly bigger sword. And then you stab something else using your slightly bigger sword. And then you keep playing.

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:36 pm

Have they released Diablo 3 yet? I remember there used to be a lot of buzz about that but I haven't heard anything about it for a long time.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 1:00 pm

They have not yet. It is in development.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 2:32 pm

Blicero wrote: In all honesty, I don't really know why Diablo II was so much fun, but it was. I've beaten the game twice as an assassin, twice as a sorceress, once as a barbarian, and once as a necromancer. And while the graphics blow and the fighting is repetitive, it's just the whole increased incentive thing. You stab something and find a slightly bigger sword. And then you stab something else using your slightly bigger sword. And then you keep playing.

I tried it as Necromancer and gave up in the first chapter. I then tried it as Sorceress, but didn't have a proper "build" from the net, so basically needed a game-hack to alter my stats and skills (as in, back to the level 1 value, then granted the level up points to redistribute) just to remain viable. And only beat Slugbutt by running around with fire steps and constantly quaffing keep-running potions and scrolling back to town to refill. The last straw was, having ignored several "You can't beat this because it's randomly immune to magic/your element" enemies, finding Haephastus impossible. So I uninstalled the game and never looked back.

Now when I get the urge for increased incentives, I load up Progress Quest and let it run for a week. DIAMOND STUDDED PLASMA ARMOUR!

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:04 pm

Progress Quest is an awesome game. My wife always shakes her head at each instance when I reinstall the game.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:42 pm

Koumei wrote: I tried it as Necromancer and gave up in the first chapter. I then tried it as Sorceress, but didn't have a proper "build" from the net, so basically needed a game-hack to alter my stats and skills (as in, back to the level 1 value, then granted the level up points to redistribute) just to remain viable. And only beat Slugbutt by running around with fire steps and constantly quaffing keep-running potions and scrolling back to town to refill. The last straw was, having ignored several "You can't beat this because it's randomly immune to magic/your element" enemies, finding Haephastus impossible. So I uninstalled the game and never looked back.

Now when I get the urge for increased incentives, I load up Progress Quest and let it run for a week. DIAMOND STUDDED PLASMA ARMOUR!

Slugbutt is probably the most annoying fight in the game. But you can beat him absurdly easily if you have a character like an Assassin or Barbarian that puts most of his points into a Weapon Mastery skill. You can do crazy damage. The only problem is that said characters are generally kinda boring to play for anything other than boss fights.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:49 pm

Koumei wrote: Wow. Diablo 2 rates in my five most hated vidya games.

It's definitely one of the most overrated games, but I guess it's suited more towards appealing to the mindless grinder rather than anyone who wants to think for themselves, since it's just "click, click, click, use potion, click click click, use potion"

The entire game is like just following a simple FF12 gambit.

1. Is life less than 50%? If so, heal.
2. Attack nearest foe.

The worst part of D2 is the stupid fucking skill system that forces you to just specialize in one fucking thing and spam it.

Diablo 2 just never excited me at all. It was a boring tedious game, basically a MMORPG-lite.

Other games I find incredibly overrated:

Halo: Seriously guys, as far as an FPS goes, it's just vanilla. You move slow as hell and the weapons are pretty boring.
Morrowind: Big world, lots of detail... zero immersion. This game lost me early because the introduction had literally nothing for you to do, and you had no idea where to go. I just honestly felt no drive to do anything at all in this game.
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.
Counterstrike: This game honestly just never did it for me. At all. It was just a crappy ripoff of Rainbow 6. I mean it's not a bad game, don't get me wrong, but I just don't see why some people go totally crazy over this game. It's nothing special.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:25 pm

Halo was always meant to be a co-op game. There wasn't even a single-player mode in the original design documents.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:47 am

Blicero wrote: Slugbutt is probably the most annoying fight in the game. But you can beat him absurdly easily if you have a character like an Assassin or Barbarian that puts most of his points into a Weapon Mastery skill. You can do crazy damage. The only problem is that said characters are generally kinda boring to play for anything other than boss fights.

See, that's acceptable in:
MMORPGs (where there are necessarily multiple players)
Pokemon (where you swap Kadabra out for Charizard)

It's not acceptable in:
Any other game
Especially one where there's only you and you get only one character

Honestly, WoW was a good idea for them, because D2 shows they have shitty design goals and skills for adventure clicky hack and slash games. By making it multiplayer they can get away with being less skilled.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:25 am

Outside of D2, anyone have any multiplayer dungeon crawl games that s/he would recommend? Looking to play something with killan, lootan, and grindan for tomorrow evening, but D2 is out of the question for various reasons.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:34 am

Koumei wrote:Honestly, WoW was a good idea for them, because D2 shows they have shitty design goals and skills for adventure clicky hack and slash games. By making it multiplayer they can get away with being less skilled.

It's not just that. With WoW, they've actually turned their particular brand of horribleness into a terrifying advantage. Tweaking a few things and adding multiplayer turned their boring designs turned into a very, very effective variable-ratio reinforcement system. Boom, thirteen million mind-raped players paying monthly fees. People don't even notice that they're mindlessly walking in circles because they're helplessly addicted to the game's delayed gratification and piecemeal handouts.

If you can't tell, I hate MMOs in general and WoW particularly. I've seen people failed out of college because of them, and one of my friends is about to unless I figure out a way to help him.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:41 am

My favorite of that one is Dynasty Warriors, because it has the multiplayer and is easy to pick up.

But multiplayer seems to be a tough request of late. Too many require lan-party style play, which is fun, yeah, but hella inconvenient.

-Crissa

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:32 am

Vebyast wrote:
If you can't tell, I hate MMOs in general and WoW particularly. I've seen people failed out of college because of them, and one of my friends is about to unless I figure out a way to help him.

I assure you, MMOs have nothing to do with it. The people who get caught in that sort of thing would have found something else to catch them if MMOs didn't exist. Trust me on this one, I went to college before there was MMOs, and I, and a lot of people I know, had the exact troubles people attribute to MMOs today.

On the Diablo thing, I seem to remember killing Diablo with a Rogue. I triggered him, fled, then killed him from off-screen.

Dynasty Warriors (and Samurai Warriors, and the combo, Warriors: Orochi) isn't a dungeon crawl, exactly. Tons of fun though.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:46 am

No, but most of the dungeon crawls have some huge bug you have to play around or are as flavourful as a mouthful of aloe.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:16 am

Also, on Halo:

Someone made a (poor graphics, low-complexity) Flash game: how many Halo Marines does it take to kill a Space Marine. You are the Space Marine, with chainsword (anything that gets close to you dies) and Boltgun (you can shoot and even strafe, and bullets kill people on impact), along with 999 HP. Endless swarms of Halo marines attack you, with bullets/touching them dealing 1 HP each. I generally get around 600+

I like the implications.

Utterfail · Post by **Utterfail** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:26 am

This?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:34 am

That's the one. And my mistake, only 400 HP. And I just killed 808 of them. 808:1 is an acceptable ratio.

Utterfail · Post by **Utterfail** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:47 am

1050, a Space Marine is now officially worth more than a thousand spartans.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:21 am

Well, I'm hooked.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:50 pm

before mmo's it was CS for a couple of m friends.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:55 pm

Neeeek wrote:I assure you, MMOs have nothing to do with it. The people who get caught in that sort of thing would have found something else to catch them if MMOs didn't exist. Trust me on this one, I went to college before there was MMOs, and I, and a lot of people I know, had the exact troubles people attribute to MMOs today.

That's true. People get addicted to things other than MMOs. Is that a reason not to hate them, though? It's like saying "if people weren't addicted to cigarettes, they'd be addicted to crack". It doesn't change the fact that they are addictive and dangerous. You are exactly right to compare them to drugs, which is why I hate them just as much as I do drugs.

Also, in case you disagree with my evaluation of them as being as dangerous as drugs: MMOs may not be immediately physically dangerous, true, but they're far easier to get addicted to (mass marketing, massive, widespread peer pressure) and far harder to get off of (can't convince friends stage an intervention very easily, can't get the police involved).